Learn more about sales enablement by attending our upcoming Virtual Summit on April 3, 2014 - Sales Enablement for Success: Experts, Research, Tools & Solutions. REGISTER for FREE: http://events.demandmetric.com The summit is ideal for marketing executives who need to align more closely with the sales function. It will focus on the strategies, technologies, tools and best practices used to empower sales and optimize the sales and marketing partnership for better performance and profitability. Attendees get 80+ Demand Metric reports, guides, tools, templates and more. Registration is FREE! Learn more about sales enablement by attending our upcoming Virtual Summit on April 3, 2014 - Sales Enablement for Success: Experts, Research, Tools & Solutions. REGISTER for FREE: http://events.demandmetric.com The summit is ideal for marketing executives who need to align more closely with the sales function. It will focus on the strategies, technologies, tools and best practices used to empower sales and optimize the sales and marketing partnership for better performance and profitability. Attendees get 80+ Demand Metric reports, guides, tools, templates and more. Registration is FREE! Sales Enablement seems like a straightforward term that describes a function to enable sales. That description, however, is where the clarity ends. This research study revealed that there are a variety of views and reported effectiveness of Sales Enablement. Despite the confusion around this topic, a clear picture emerges from the study of what this function looks like where it is working well. This picture provides a source of best practices to help any organization leverage Sales Enablement to facilitate achieving revenue goals. To obtain this document, visit us at http://www.demandmetric.com/register

1. Benchmark Report
Sales Enablement in 2013:
Benchmarks, Insights & Advice
Sponsored By:
© 2013 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
3
Executive Summary
13
Who Owns Sales Enablement
5
Research Methodology
14
Sales Enablement Maturity
6
Presence of Sales Enablement
15
Sales Enablement Strategic Orientation
7
What Sales Enablement Does
18
Sales Enablement Budget & Staffing
9
Effectiveness of Sales Enablement
19
Measuring Sales Enablement
11
How Sales Enablement is Understood
21
The Future of Sales Enablement
13
Who Owns Sales Enablement
22
Analyst Bottom Line
13
Sales Enablement Maturity
23
Acknowledgements

3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Sales Enablement seems to suffer from an identity crisis. This study paints a picture of a function that for many organizations
presents a paradox, and for others, a panacea. A marketer from a high-tech firm with over $100 million in annual sales shared,
“I have not heard of Sales Enablement.” Similar comments came from a number of others who participated in this benchmarking
study. Other survey participants, however, have a very clear vision for Sales Enablement, and their organizations report that it
contributes significantly.
From a research perspective, the varying views and contributions of Sales Enablement revealed in this study bring to mind the
fable of the blind men and the elephant. Each man examined a different part of the elephant – the tail, trunk, ear, side and leg –
and drew a completely different conclusion from the others as to what an elephant was like. In the fable, none of the men were
able to develop a correct, composite view of the whole animal. There are certainly some parallels between this fable and Sales
Enablement, but this study makes it clear that plenty of organizations have figured out exactly what Sales Enablement is, and
are using it to their advantage.
There are also differing definitions for Sales Enablement. The most universal one discovered in this study defines it as a
function that “develops strategy to help improve the sales process.” This is a logical definition, but the study reveals that this
definition isn’t often supported by process orientation, measurement, a level of staffing or budget that would adequately support
a function identified as “strategic.”
Despite the variety of views and reported effectiveness of Sales Enablement, a clear picture emerges from the study of what this
function looks like where it is working well. This picture provides a source of best practices to help any organization leverage
Sales Enablement to facilitate achieving revenue goals.

4. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - continued
Demand Metric collected responses from over 380 participants, and the analysis of the survey data provides these key findings:
 Sales Enablement is most commonly defined as a function that “develops strategy to help improve the sales process.”
Yet 54% of survey participants indicate that the function is either very or primarily operationally oriented as it exists
in their organizations.
 Half the participants in this study indicated the presence of a Sales Enablement role or function in their
organizations. Of those organizations that do not have this function, slightly over half cite lack of understanding as the
reason.
 Of the organizations that have Sales Enablement, 75% report that it makes a moderate or significant contribution.
 Where Sales Enablement is effective in terms of contribution, 76% of survey participants report that it is also well or
very well understood. On contrast, where it is not effective in terms of contribution, 74% report that it is poorly or very poorly
understood.
 47% of organizations where Sales Enablement is not effective in terms of contribution have no measurements in
place for the function.
This report details the results and insights from the analysis of the study data.
We hope you enjoy this study!
Jerry Rackley, Chief Analyst
Demand Metric

5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The Demand Metric 2013 Sales Enablement Survey was administered online during the period of August 9th through August
26th, 2013. During this period, over 380 responses were collected, 330 of which were complete and not duplicates and were
therefore included in the analysis. All members of the Demand Metric community received email invitations to participate in the
survey, and participation was encouraged through a random draw incentive for an iPad Mini. While respondent email addresses
were collected in order to facilitate the prize drawing, no identifying information was retained or considered in the analysis of the
survey data.
Summarized below is the basic information was collected about survey respondents to enable filtering and analysis of data:
Annual Revenues:
Type of Organization:








$10 million or less (39%)
$11 to $25 million (10%)
$26 to $100 million (18%)
$101 to $500 million (14%)
Over $500 million (19%)
Achievement of Revenue Goals:





Fell far short of goals (12%)
Just missed achieving goals (24%)
Achieved goal (42%)
Exceeded goals (18%)
Far exceeded goals (4%)
Primary Role of Respondent:







6. PRESENCE OF SALES ENABLEMENT
Does your organization have a Sales Enablement
role or function?
Don't
Know,
9%
The most basic question this study attempted to answer
was how prevalent Sales Enablement is as a role or
function in organizations, either as a formal “box on the
org chart” or an informal role.
More large companies than medium or small ones report
having a Sales Enablement function:
Company Size
Small (≥$25M)
No
Don’t Know
38%
Yes
52%
10%
Yes, 50%
Med ($26-$500M)
55%
37%
8%
Large (<$500M)
No, 41%
68%
25%
7%
Company size was determined using annual revenue,
where small companies were under $25 million in
revenue, medium-sized companies between $26 and
$500 million, and large companies were over $500 million
in annual revenues.
6

7. WHAT SALES ENABLEMENT DOES
Definitions of Sales Enablement
61%
Develops strategy
50%
Creates materials and assets
43%
System administration and support
42%
Provides sales effectiveness training
41%
Performs analysis
Identifies cross-selling opportunities
36%
Helps integrate new channels
36%
35%
Offers coarching to members
34%
Provides product training
30%
Flattens organizational boundaries
26%
On-boards sales staff
Other
4%
0%
7
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
An important goal of this study was simply to understand
how organizations view Sales Enablement. The study
survey asked the following question:
“Which statement best characterizes your understanding of
Sales Enablement?”
Participants were allowed to choose any of the provided
responses that applied.
Furthermore, all participants were asked to respond to this
question, regardless of whether they had a Sales
Enablement role or function in their organization.
The story of this data is that Sales Enablement is multifaceted. When it is defined by the functions it
performs, no single functional definition covers all that
Sales Enablement encompasses. Ari

8. WHAT SALES ENABLEMENT DOES
At the same time, the view of Sales Enablement is clearly a strategic one: the top choice, “It develops strategy…” clearly casts
Sales Enablement in a role that the study reveals it is not playing in most organizations. In other words, the perception and
reality differ, as this report will discuss in a later section.
Further analysis of the chart on Page 7 was performed to discover if those in sales roles have a different definition of Sales
Enablement than those in marketing. This analysis revealed two statistically significant differences:
 The Sales Enablement definition, “It creates materials and assets to improve the sales team’s effectiveness” was
selected more often by marketers (65%) than members of the sales team (44%). This result is likely a reflection of the
marketing team identifying with a function for which they have responsibility.
 The definition, “It provides product training” was also selected by marketing (44%) more frequently than by
members of the sales team (21%).
8

9. EFFECTIVENESS OF SALES ENABLEMENT
It’s one thing to understand how Sales Enablement is
defined. It’s quite another to examine how effective it
is. Half of the participants in this study indicated that
their organization had a Sales Enablement role or
function. This group was asked:
Sales Enablement Effectiveness
45%
40%
42%
35%
33%
30%
“How effective is the Sales Enablement role or function
at your organization?”
“Do the 33% of organizations that report Sales
Enablement is making a significant contribution view it
differently from those who report it makes a slight or no
discernible contribution?”
25%
20%
15%
13%
10%
5%
7%
5%
0%
Don't know
9
No
Slight
Moderate Significant
discernible contribution contribution contribution
contribution
When it comes to effectiveness, there are no
statistically meaningful differences for these functional
definitions:






On-board new sales staff
Provide product training
Identify cross-selling opportunities
Perform analysis on how well our sale process works
Create materials and assets for sales effectiveness
Develop strategy to improve the sales process