I don’t usually use this blog to promote or announce things, but I think that you’d probably want to here about this fundamental change in the sales effectiveness industry. Here’s the press release in its entirety.
Dealmaker® Partner Network to Fundamentally Change the Sales Effectiveness Industry
The TAS Group makes the Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation platform available to selected partners Huthwaite, InfoMentis, and Think! as the industry standard for automation of sales methodology, process, and skills
SEATTLE – Sept. 29, 2009 – The TAS Group (www.thetasgroup.com), the world leader in Sales Performance Automation, today announced the formal launch of its Dealmaker® Partner Network (DPN), an industry initiative to dramatically improve the benefit customers receive from sales effectiveness investments. Leveraging the Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation Platform (www.thetasgroup.com/dealmaker.html), already in use by more than 15,000 sales professionals, the DPN is the first initiative of its kind in the sales effectiveness industry.
By using the best-in-class sales methodology, process, and skills intellectual property from the DPN Solution Partners and The TAS Group, customers will have access to a comprehensive range of sales effectiveness solutions. All delivered through the Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation software platform, these capabilities offer sustained and predictable improvement in sales effectiveness. The DPN is further augmented by capabilities from additional partners to ensure that customers get the complete solution along with expert sales training, integration and support services.
The DPN offers the following categories of partners:
- Solution Partner. Companies that have top-tier, market-proven intellectual property that helps sales people sell more effectively. This includes the sub-categories of:
- Sales Methodology
- Sales Process
- Sales Skills
- Authorized Resellers. Companies that have strong go-to-market capabilities in their local market and are able to advise customers on the best approach to their specific Sales Performance Automation requirements.
- Systems Integrators. Companies that have proven expertise in integrating technology solutions into customer environments.
- Strategic Partners. Companies that provide enterprise-class CRM applications, global social networks, sale productivity, marketing automation and other capabilities. The open architecture of the Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation platform facilitates integration with a wide range of solutions to serve customers’ sales effectiveness requirements.
“It hasn’t been easy for customers to get the most from their sales productivity investments. Bringing the best-in-class providers from the sales effectiveness market together with leading CRM providers through the Dealmaker Partner Network can radically change that,” said Donal Daly, CEO of The TAS Group. “We’re proud to make our Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation platform available to this initiative. We continue to invest millions of dollars in the platform each year, and we’re delighted that these high-caliber Solution Partners have chosen to invest in this program to deliver more value to a broader range of customers.”
Alongside The TAS Group, the three founding Solution Partner members of the DPN are:
- Huthwaite (www.huthwaite.com), creators of SPIN Selling, and one of the world’s leading sales training, coaching and performance improvement companies
- InfoMentis (www.infomentis.com), the global revenue collaboration leader that helps companies sell the way their customers buy
- Think! Inc. (www.e-thinkinc.com), the foremost provider of strategic negotiation solutions
Additional DPN founder partners include Bee Group (http://www.beegrp.com), a Dealmaker Authorized Reseller Partner, and Statera (http://www.statera.com/), a Dealmaker Systems Integrator Partner. Strategic Technology Partners include Oracle, salesforce.com, and Microsoft through their respective CRM partner programs.
“We’re excited about what the Dealmaker Partner Network means for our CRM customers,” said Anthony Lye, senior vice president of CRM Products for Oracle. “Bringing these vendors and capabilities together means our customers will have a broader array of choices and a more comprehensive sales effectiveness solution to complement their Siebel and Oracle CRM On Demand applications.”
“Sales effectiveness initiatives should make it easier to manage your business to grow revenue. Combining the proven value of SPIN Selling, and our other intellectual property with the Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation platform, will enable us to further accelerate business growth for Huthwaite customers.” said John Golden, CEO of Huthwaite Inc. “The moment is right for the convergence of methodology, skills and process which can now be achieved by combining our expertise and research-based methodologies with the Dealmaker platform. We’re also very excited about the ecosystem aspect of the Solution Partners’ cooperation which represents real though-leadership and customer-centered innovation within this industry. This is a fundamental upgrade for the sales effectiveness market.”
“The biggest challenge that our customers have is the significant amount of human interaction needed to ensure adoption. By leveraging Dealmaker, our customers will be able to shift their time from inspection to coaching.” said Wendy Reed, CEO of InfoMentis. “This is an important development for the sales effectiveness market. We believe the standard being set by the Dealmaker Partner Network will become the ‘new normal,’ and the benefits that accrue to customers adopting the sales effectiveness platform will be dramatic.”
“The sales effectiveness market has been crying out for collaboration and a systematic approach to improving revenue,” said Brian Dietmeyer, CEO of Think! Inc. “Working with the other DPN partners, we’re excited to be able to bring our Strategic Negotiation solutions to a broader market, delivering sustained and predictable revenue improvement through the Dealmaker Sales Performance Automation platform.”
The benefit of the DPN to customers has also been recognized by analysts that monitor the sales effectiveness industry. “This initiative from The TAS Group leapfrogs what others in this market have done,” said Dave Stein, CEO of ES Research Group, Inc. “For the first time, customers can get the benefit of offerings from multiple top-tier sales effectiveness vendors, all seamlessly integrated with the automation that we believe is critical to long-term success.”
“Customers are increasingly looking for a well-rounded, on-demand system to help them achieve their sales performance automation objectives, and the Dealmaker Partner Network gives us the unique ability to offer them that,” said Bruce Ellis, CEO of the Bee Group, Inc. “We now have a palette of solutions to offer our customers, and do a more complete job of meeting customers’ rapidly evolving needs, including virtual delivery, automated coaching, objective metrics, skills training, all integrated with the CRM system they’re already using.”
The TAS Group plans to further expand the Dealmaker Partner Network in the coming months to further round out its suite of capabilities. Companies that have an interest in joining the Network are encouraged to contact the company to enquire further and discuss their potential fit in detail.