Sales enablement platforms

Preparing the salesperson with the right content and coaching for every step

This is the last Market Segment in Industry Vertical 14, CRM and sales tech. It covers the software that prepares the salesperson, or sales rep, for every step in the Market Segments before it.

Back to the Pune company that sells payroll software to hospitals, from Market Segments 14.2 to 14.5. Its salesperson needs three kinds of help:

The right content, found in seconds

Before the meeting at the Chennai hospital, the salesperson needs the deck (the slide presentation), a case study of another hospital that uses the product, and the latest pricing sheet. Without the right software, the salesperson asks for them in a team chat channel and waits. The same content often goes into a proposal. (More on proposals in Market Segment 14.5, CPQ, pricing and RFP software.)

Training before a launch

Next month, the company launches a new module for staff attendance. Every salesperson has to learn it before the launch. (More on training platforms for all employees in Market Segment 12.8, Corporate learning (LMS) and skills platforms, in Industry Vertical 12, HR tech.)

Coaching after a call that went badly

On one call, the hospital's head of finance asked a question the salesperson could not answer. Someone has to help the salesperson do better next time.

The industry that manages this content and this readiness is called sales enablement. It is a small Market Segment with one striking fact. All three of its companies have their Indian engineering in Hyderabad, and the two largest are the two leaders of the category.

Before the meeting the salesperson needs the right content and training on the new module, and after a call that went badly the salesperson needs coaching.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

This Market Segment has one sub-segment, covering all three companies.

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The content, the training and the coaching

The content, the training and the coaching

Back to the salesperson preparing for the meeting at the Chennai hospital. These three companies sell the software that finds the deck, trains the salesperson and coaches them after the call.

Seismic

with engineers in Hyderabad, has posted more jobs than any other company in this Market Segment. It is the category's largest company. It sells an enablement cloud with three parts. Marketing publishes the approved content in it. Salespeople find the content and personalise it for each buyer. And the company can see which pieces were sent, and which ones helped move a deal forward. (More on how marketing makes the content in Market Segment 13.5, Creative tools, event platforms and creator marketing, in Industry Vertical 13, Martech.) Beside it sits a learning and coaching product, which Seismic got when it bought Lessonly. Its Hyderabad centre is one of its largest.

Highspot

with engineers in Hyderabad, is Seismic's closest rival. It offers the same content, training and coaching in one platform. It also has buyer-engagement pages: web pages through which the salesperson shares content with a prospect, a possible customer who is being sold to.

GTM Buddy

a small Hyderabad company, sells enablement for smaller teams. It offers the content, the coaching, and a digital sales room, a shared online space where the buyer and the seller share material.

The coach who heard the call.

Sales enablement used to be a library and a classroom. It is becoming an AI model that has read every piece of content and heard every sales call. Before the meeting, it tells the rep what to send. After the meeting, it tells the rep what to do differently. Seismic and Highspot are both rebuilding their products around that assistant. (More on recording and analysing sales calls in Market Segment 14.4, Revenue intelligence and sales compensation software.)

That is enabling the rep, and the end of Industry Vertical 14. It is the content, the training and the coaching that prepare the salesperson for every step, from the first name on a list to the signed quote.

Industry Vertical 14 runs from finding the buyer and reaching out to forecasting and quoting, with the CRM underneath every step and sales enablement preparing the salesperson for each one.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What CRM and sales tech companies hire for.

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