Mobile SFA: Empowering the 24/7 Road Warrior

Market Wire, April, 2008

Empowering the sales force with tools to work remotely has evolved dramatically since the first wave of smart phones hit the streets nearly ten years ago. Sales reps have grown adept at basic applications such as email and web browsing, but often still wait for an end-of-day laptop session to access their CRM system. A recent study conducted on mobile SFA conducted by Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), reveals that companies are increasingly turning to mobile SFA tools in order to boost sales force productivity, shorten customer response time, and increase executive insight in sales activities. Best-in-Class companies are 3.8 times more likely than Laggards to reduce the amount of downtime for field personnel through the use of mobile SFA devices.

The top pressure causing all organizations to focus resources on mobile SFA stems from the most fundamental sales goal: to increase sales productivity. Best-in-Class companies indicated that they currently perform on-the-spot customer demos (63%) and have access to centralized repository of accounts, history, contacts, tasks, inventory, and pipeline (53%).

"Aberdeen's research shows that in the field, managers who have empowered reps with more customer-facing authority, insight, and technology oversee more top performing teams than traditionalists," said Peter Ostrow, VP/Group Director of the Customer Management Group at Aberdeen. "A certain sub-set of mobile SFA enablers are clearly providing these Best-in-Class teams with a competitive edge."

The report demonstrates the value of collectively leveraging organizational practices in process, performance measurement, knowledge management and technology to provide a foundation for sales effectiveness. By utilizing mobile access to sales management tools and linking customer records with incoming correspondence, Best-in-Class companies are able to positively affect both sales productivity and customer satisfaction.

The research educates readers on how to leverage organizational capabilities to support mobile SFA initiatives. The report also provides the results that Best-in-Class companies achieve across key metrics after employing processes and technologies and compares these companies to the Industry Average and Laggards who have not yet pursued a similar strategy.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part to the following underwriters: Dexterra and SAP. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4723 .

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com .

© 2008 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
260 Franklin Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02110-3112
Telephone: (617) 723-7890
Fax: (617) 723-7897
 www.aberdeen.com 

Media Contact: Peter Ostrow Aberdeen Harte-Hanks (617) 854-5373 peter.ostrow@aberdeen.com