ANALY TICS WHITE PAPER

Leverage analytics and mobile apps

to boost sales productivity.

Unlock the value of your SFA/CRM system:

Copyright InformationAll Contents Copyright © 2015 MicroStrategy Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Trademark InformationMicroStrategy, MicroStrategy 6, MicroStrategy 7, MicroStrategy 7i, MicroStrategy 7i Evaluation Edition, MicroStrategy 7i Olap Services, MicroStrategy 8, MicroStrategy 9, MicroStrategy Distribution Services, MicroStrategy MultiSource Option, MicroStrategy Command Manager, MicroStrategy Enterprise Manager, MicroStrategy Object Manager, MicroStrategy Reporting Suite, MicroStrategy Power User, MicroStrategy Analyst, MicroStrategy Consumer, MicroStrategy Email Delivery, MicroStrategy BI Author, MicroStrategy BI Modeler, MicroStrategy Evaluation Edition, MicroStrategy Administrator, MicroStrategy Agent, MicroStrategy Architect, MicroStrategy BI Developer Kit, MicroStrategy Broadcast Server, MicroStrategy Broadcaster, MicroStrategy Broadcaster Server, MicroStrategy Business Intelligence Platform, MicroStrategy Consulting, MicroStrategy CRM Applications, MicroStrategy Customer Analyzer, MicroStrategy Desktop, MicroStrategy Desktop Analyst, MicroStrategy Desktop Designer, MicroStrategy eCRM 7, MicroStrategy Education, MicroStrategy eTrainer, MicroStrategy Executive, MicroStrategy Infocenter, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server Universal Edition, MicroStrategy MDX Adapter, MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server, MicroStrategy Objects, MicroStrategy OLAP Provider, MicroStrategy SDK, MicroStrategy Support, MicroStrategy Telecaster, MicroStrategy Transactor, MicroStrategy Web, MicroStrategy Web Business Analyzer, MicroStrategy World, Application Development and Sophisticated Analysis, Best In Business Intelligence, Centralized Application Management, Information Like Water, Intelligence Through Every Phone, Intelligence To Every Decision Maker, Intelligent E-Business, Personalized Intelligence Portal, Query Tone, Rapid Application Development, MicroStrategy Intelligent Cubes, The Foundation For Intelligent E-Business, The Integrated Business Intelligence Platform Built For The Enterprise, The Platform For Intelligent E-Business, The Scalable Business Intelligence Platform Built For The Internet, Office Intelligence, MicroStrategy Office, MicroStrategy Report Services, MicroStrategy Web MMT, MicroStrategy Web Services, Pixel Perfect, Pixel-Perfect, MicroStrategy Mobile, MicroStrategy Integrity Manager and MicroStrategy Data Mining Services are all registered trademarks or trademarks of MicroStrategy Incorporated.

All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Specifications subject to change without notice. MicroStrategy is not responsible for errors or omissions. MicroStrategy makes no warranties or commitments concerning the availability of future products or versions that may be planned or under development.

Patent InformationThis product is patented. One or more of the following patents may apply to the product sold herein: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,154,766, 6,173,310, 6,260,050, 6,263,051, 6,269,393, 6,279,033, 6,567,796, 6,587,547, 6,606,596, 6,658,093, 6,658,432, 6,662,195, 6,671,715, 6,691,100, 6,694,316, 6,697,808, 6,704,723, 6,741,980, 6,765,997, 6,768,788, 6,772,137, 6,788,768, 6,798,867, 6,801,910, 6,820,073, 6,829,334, 6,836,537, 6,850,603, 6,859,798, 6,873,693, 6,885,734, 6,940,953, 6,964,012, 6,977,992, 6,996,568, 6,996,569, 7,003,512, 7,010,518, 7,016,480, 7,020,251, 7,039,165, 7,082,422, 7,113,993, 7,127,403, 7,174,349, 7,181,417, 7,194,457, 7,197,461, 7,228,303, 7,260,577, 7,266,181, 7,272,212, 7,302,639, 7,324,942, 7,330,847, 7,340,040, 7,356,758, 7,356,840, 7,415,438, 7,428,302, 7,430,562, 7,440,898, 7,486,780, 7,509,671, 7,516,181, 7,559,048, 7,574,376, 7,617,201, 7,725,811, 7,801,967, 7,836,178, 7,861,161, 7,861,253, 7,881,443, 7,925,616, 7,945,584, 7,970,782, 8,005,870, 8,051,168, 8,051,369, 8,094,788, 8,130,918 and 8,296,287. Other patent applications are pending.

ANALY TICS WHITE PAPER

microstrategy.com 1

Executive summary

In today’s competitive business environment, corporate leaders

are routinely called upon to make rapid and crucial decisions.

Top managers realize that to stay ahead of the market and the

competition, they must be able to efficiently access company

data anytime, anywhere. Advanced business analytics and mobile

applications make this possible. These tools have begun to eliminate

the previous challenges associated with accessing, visualizing, and

analyzing data wherever you may be, allowing you and your sales

team to maximize your company’s sales potential. In this white paper,

we will explain how this is accomplished.

With advances in business intelligence (BI) tools, data stored in Sales

Force Automation (SFA) and Customer Relationship Management

(CRM) systems can be analyzed in a multitude of ways. For example,

your sales and marketing teams can identify sales trends, answer

crucial client questions, and allow real-time mobile selling. By using

these applications to their full potential, your company can stay

on top of sales cycles, contacts, and pipelines, leading to increased

revenue growth.

To unleash this potential, four key SFA and CRM challenges must

be targeted:

• Difficulty getting the data needed to effectively run your business.

• A lack of advanced analytical capabilities.

• A weak set of standard visualizations.

• Incomplete field access to valuable sales resources.

By overcoming these four challenges, you will get the most from

your SFA and CRM data and increase the return on investment for

these systems. Information that was once used exclusively for basic

sales, marketing, and customer service processes will be accessible

for visual analysis by all departments, improving forecasts and

optimizing resources.

This white paper will articulate how to quickly address these

four challenges. It will further explain how businesses are using

interactive dashboards, stunning visualizations, and superior analytics

to improve performance and rise above their competition. Lastly, it

will illustrate how the addition of mobile applications dramatically

increases the use of SFA and CRM platforms, maximizing sales

representative productivity.

The four challenges of SFA and CRM systems

Challenge 1: Difficulty getting the data you needed to

effectively run your business

Your latest product line is selling out in Paris, but inventory is stagnant

in Vancouver. Demand has been growing in Tokyo and slowing in

London. At times like this, you need comprehensive data that can help

you draw meaningful insights. You must be able to tap into historical

CRM data and other data sources on supplies, marketing, and markets.

Comprehensive data from a variety of sources allows you to examine

market changes over the past year, helping you understand how to

reallocate resources to control or reduce expenses and maximize sales.

Getting all the information you need to run your business has been

a challenge, commonly due to (1) SFA and CRM capacity restraints

where additional storage is usually sold at a premium and (2)

attempting to synchronize tools that were not built for integration

with one another.

Without the ability to consolidate information from different

sources and access historical information, the risk for data

latency, inaccessibility, and inconsistency grows. Unreliable and

incomprehensive data degrades sales reps’ and managers’ abilities

to skillfully analyze sales, customers, competitors, and industry

trends. Independently accessing various silos of information wastes

resources and makes it difficult to carry out decisions based on a

holistic view of enterprise data.

iPad 12:30 PM 100%

ANALY TICS WHITE PAPER

microstrategy.com 2

Business analytics tools enable you to visualize and drill into

comprehensive data to pinpoint sales trends and answer complex

questions, such as:

• Do specific industries respond to certain products?

• Can I predict sales related to seasonality?

• Are there competitors we are losing to in specific industries for

specific application areas?

• What is the true profit and loss for sales territories?

Advanced business analytics tools can help you overcome known

challenges with SFA and CRM systems to assist you in answering the

business questions that matter. They ensure reports and dashboards

are dependable, so different teams can collaborate and have

productive conversations with one another, and with customers. All

departments and clients can be comfortable knowing that their data

is comprehensive and consistent. This facilitates cooperation and

drives higher close rates, ultimately helping your organization grow.

Challenge 2: A lack of advanced analytical capabilities

Friday morning you receive a summary of the latest sales forecast

report, which includes sales quota and actual sales data. It appears

that sales are slowing. At this rate, you might not meet your quota

this quarter. You drill into the actual-versus-forecasted sales report

for a break down of figures by individual sales representatives. From

there, you can drill across to view the sales pipeline of a particular rep.

It is possible that someone is not receiving the support he or she

needs in order to close an opportunity.

SFA and CRM tools are unable to support this type of predictive

analytics and drilling. With the addition of leading business analytics

tools, you now have access to the advanced analytics needed to

resolve complex questions and anticipate trends.

There are two areas in particular where SFA and CRM systems

fall short:

1. Advanced and predictive analytics—Advanced and predictive

analytics give business users and data analysts full investigative

power into all aspects of an organization’s data. Sales teams are

able to gain new and deeper insights into their accounts. Lead

scoring models help organizations identify accounts most likely to

close so appropriate resources can be reallocated.

2. Online analytical processing (OLAP)— SFA and CRM tools do not

deliver when it comes to OLAP-style analytics. OLAP capabilities,

such as slicing, dicing, and drilling, are often limited (or in some

cases nonexistent), which means that organizations are unable to

extend their analyses into every corner of their data warehouse.

Sales managers need the ability to look at a regional dashboard

and drill across to product-level data. This capability can help them

grasp how varying levels of product demand may be affecting

revenue in particular regions. This type of understanding is crucial

to optimizing earning potential.

Integrating a business analytics platform with your SFA and CRM

systems empowers you with the predictive analysis needed to make

quick and impactful decisions.

Challenge 3: A weak set of standard visualizations

As part of a new upsell program, you need to investigate product

performance and identify growth opportunities. You bring up a

dashboard containing cutting-edge maps, allowing you to perform

white space analysis. It is apparent that there are untapped sales

opportunities in Southeast Asia. You drill into Southeast Asia and

the surrounding regions to interpret buying patterns within existing

accounts. An advanced graph matrix helps you identify products not

being sold, and network visualizations help you with affinity analysis.

The best way to understand your data is to visualize it, but SFA and

CRM systems provide a poor set of standard visualizations. The

visualizations are usually limited to static bar and pie charts.

A comprehensive business analytics platform can provide a rich

library of advanced visualizations, including maps, networks, and

graph matrix visualizations. Users can interact with their visualizations

and change them as they see fit. With a business analytics platform,

every user has the power to be a professional data-journalist.

Challenge 4: Incomplete access to valuable sales

resources in the field

You have finished your afternoon sales presentation and the client

is ready to sign a new deal. You present her with the agreement and

get her signature on your tablet. With time left in your day, you access

the GPS data in your mobile app to find another nearby prospect.

After a stop to introduce yourself and your new product line, you

finish the day at the airport gate. There, you use your tablet to enter

ANALY TICS WHITE PAPER

microstrategy.com 3

the latest opportunity or account data into the company SFA and

CRM systems, create presentation visuals for an upcoming meeting,

and map out travel for the week. Sophisticated mobile apps make

these tasks all possible.

Tablet devices have ushered in a whole new era for field sales. Many

of their inherent features, such as intuitive touch-screen displays,

instant on, long battery life, GPS, and 3G/4G Internet access become

powerful tools when combined with the sales-focused business apps

that run on them.

Some businesses are reluctant to move forward in developing

a mobile strategy because they have invested heavily in an SFA

or CRM system for which they have yet to realize the anticipated

ROI. Ironically though, mobile sales apps—which are sometimes

incorrectly perceived as an extraneous investment—boost ROI on

existing investments.

Mobile apps boost sales rep productivity and improve customer

engagement by providing compelling intelligence and visualizations.

Sales reps and clients are able to easily interact with data on a

mobile device, creating an enjoyable and engaging experience.

When combined with SFA, CRM, or other sales-related data, mobile

apps give reps a complete toolkit for projecting a cutting-edge

appearance in front of customers and working optimally in the field.

4,192

3,559

3,527

3,446

3,208

2,977

2,893

Standard visuatlizations

Advanced visuatlizations

With sophisticated mobile apps, business moves in real time. Sales

professionals with mobile access have a constant connection to data

and analytics, multimedia content, market intelligence, and product

information. This makes it possible to create engaging presentations

and answer client questions on the spot.

Unlock the value of your SFA and CRM with MicroStrategy

Business analytics and mobile solutions, such as those powered by

MicroStrategy’s Analytics and Mobile Platforms, help organizations

overcome the four challenges outlined here. They protect and

enhance SFA and CRM investments. They deliver deep insights with

interactive reports and dashboards containing comprehensive data,

superior analytics, and stunning visuals. Simply put, they radically

improve your organization’s performance and revenue growth.

In addition to increasing the ROI of SFA and CRM systems,

MicroStrategy’s Analytics and Mobile Platforms integrate seamlessly

with your existing systems. This frees up money and IT resources for

use on other high priority projects. MicroStrategy’s out-of-the-box

connectors to SFA and CRM systems, like Salesforce, ensure an easy,

seamless integration with no custom coding required.

Once connected, organizations can rapidly build and deliver reports,

dashboards, and mobile apps using all their relevant enterprise

ANALY TICS WHITE PAPER

microstrategy.com 4COLL-1365 0415

data. The MicroStrategy Platform employs a unitary architecture

designed organically from the ground up, offering the ability to

build reports

or dashboards once, deploying them anywhere—web, email,

mobile, and within documents. Everyone, from sales representatives

in the field to the President of Sales, can access consistent and

reliable reports and dashboards.

The MicroStrategy Analytics Platform also provides robust advanced

analytics that enable complex questions to be answered. Out-of-

the-box access to over 300 functions allows users to perform more

complex analytics as their analyses mature and needs change—

functions like data summarization, trend analysis, benchmarking,

relationship analysis, and projections.

For the most complex questions, MicroStrategy also has a tight

integration with R, an open source, statistical programming

language. Drill-anywhere capabilities give users unlimited and

immediate investigative analysis. Users can drill to any corner of

their data warehouse. These capabilities power sales teams to

perform advanced calculations.

MicroStrategy’s stunning data visualizations help you come to

conclusions quickly and intuitively. These visualizations go beyond

the traditional bar graphs and pie charts to advanced network

visualizations, graph matrices, geographical maps, and more.

Users can access and combine hundreds of data sources and

build dashboards containing several visualizations to perform

comprehensive data discovery.

With MicroStrategy Mobile, you can deploy dynamic native Mobile

Sales Enablement (MSE) applications that bring together analytics,

rich multimedia content, and write-back transactions. Since

connectivity in the field is not always guaranteed, MicroStrategy

Mobile apps provide online or offline access to all your important

sales information and tools.

MicroStrategy empowers you to maximize your sales organization’s

potential and improve business growth by unlocking the full potential

of your SFA or CRM systems. Ultimately, your business can deliver

deeper insights and answer the important questions needed to

increase revenue growth.

iPad 12:30 PM 100%

12:30 PM 100%