Yesterday, I spoke at Cebit 2014 on sales process automation.

It was an interesting topic because so many Australian companies have yet to realise just how much more efficient their sales process can be through sales automation and the ROI in terms of revenue acquired because of having an effective sales process automation system in place.

Collaborating CRM, marketing automation, workflow automation and email marketing, sales process automation is one of the most important areas for businesses to focus on in 2014. 

Not only will they:

1. Make sales representatives more efficient
2. Provide managers with better insight into the sales staff's activities
3. Provide visibility into the sales process for other parts of the business
4. Ensure that marketing is providing the forum for sales to occur

but you will see a huge spike in customers and revenue.

Just by implementing a marketing automation system in their business, Australian company Upskilled, an early adopter of marketing automation, increased their customer base by 46% to 54,000 contacts in 6 months, directly attributed to its segmented, customisable and automated email campaign capabilities (source: cmo.com.au). Most importantly, revenue generated by emails doubled within 6 months.

As I presented on sales automation, I asked for the audience to show me how many of them used marketing automation. The result, one person's company. I suspect from my discussions afterwards, many companies are still unfamiliar as to what marketing automation is and its value.

Sales automation is a hot topic, not quite as much of a buzz word as its support team in marketing automation, but nevertheless, very significant for companies wanting to get their sales process right and increase revenue and efficiencies.

There are many advantages of sales automation:

• Shortened sales cycle
• Scientific monitoring of data
• Up to date information
• Cross checking of data
• Market segmentation
• Increased revenue per sales representative
• Increased average order size
• Increased close rate
• Increase revenue per customer

Marketing automation has seen the fastest growth of any CRM-related segment in the last 5 years according to Focus Research. And there are reasons and it's all to do with money in the bank, and ROI.

According to research, automation users have a 54% higher conversion rate from marketing response to marketing-qualified leads than non-users and for businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects, they experience a 451% increase in qualified leads.

Australian businesses who want a competitive advantage need to see a marketing automation solution that works well with their CRM systems, automating all sales and marketing functions to produce a better result.

Equally as important is ensuring that your marketing team is providing the right content and visuals that resonate with your target audience. Unfortunately, technology alone, and good sales people, will not guarantee the result you may be looking for.