In today’s ultra-competitive sales landscape, any tool that can give an organization the upper hand is a welcome asset.

And sales acceleration technology is just that—a much lauded bridge between CRM and marketing automation software.

As the name suggests, Sales Acceleration technology helps turn more leads into more sales, quickly. It lowers the response time of generating leads over the web, initiates more sales calls in a shorter time frame, and uses the Internet and videoconferencing to reduce business travel and repetitive sales practices. All in all, the market for sales acceleration technology is growing at a steady CAGR of 16.3% from 2014-2019, thanks in large part to participation from key vendors like Marketo Inc., Microsoft, and Oracle.

Trends to watch in the global sales acceleration market

Growing trend toward remote purchasing

Many buyers are moving online, and initiating purchase decisions through smartphones, social media and other web resources, instead of opting for face-to-face sales meetings. To accommodate this shift, a majority of sellers are also moving their business online. In fact, more than 75% of the businesses are predicted to use online customer engagement software support by 2019.

In response to this, many companies are adopting various Sales Acceleration Technologies such as CRM analytics to leverage more flexibility in online purchasing.

Explosion of online lead generation

The evolution of social media and advances in digital marketing and SEO techniques have changed the way buyers seek products and services. In turn, this has changed the way businesses generate sales leads.

Some sales acceleration technologies are integrated with existing CRM software that maintains and manages customer relationships and helps companies understand new market requirements. While CRM software now offers enhanced reliability, more companies are adopting sales acceleration techniques to help representatives handle emerging opportunities. This technology offers a clear understanding of customer requirements and improves the sales interaction process. It also helps sales personnel reduce high velocity sales calls.

Increasing usage of cloud-based predictive analytics

Industries such as retail, hardware/software, manufacturing, and financial services have been using predictive analytics at a steadily increasing rate, as organizations aim to streamline their sales pipeline.

E-commerce retailers have gained market traction following the increased popularity of online shopping and widespread use of mobile devices. Consequently, companies are investing more into predictive analytics to attract consumers. The retail and financial services sectors will generate significant demand for predictive analytics during the forecast period.

Vendors are consistently focused on adopting solutions based on following parameters:

Increased demand for sales automation

In the last five years, demand for sales automation and customer service and support solutions has risen. Vendors offering both on-site and SaaS solutions are remodeling their user bases and revenue structures to include a larger share of SaaS.

Call centers with low call volumes and limited workflow requirements, such as B2B customer service centers, are suitable target markets for SaaS-based social CRM software vendors. On-demand solutions in call centers are an economical alternative to expensive on-premises maintenance applications, and increased demand for these solutions will be a key trend to watch over the next four years.