Addressing UI complexity, enabling greater mobility, and augmenting generative AI… these are just some of the emerging trends touching the Sales Force Automation (SFA) Platform market.
Of course, those GenAI moves steal the headlines, with Gartner itself writing many of them.
For instance, the analyst predicts that B2B sellers will execute three-fifths of their work through conversational UIs via GenAI sales technologies by 2028.
Such statistics highlight how SFA Platform buyers should now factor the GenAI roadmap of vendors into their decision-making.
Yet, there are many more elements of the platform to think through. To understand each, here is how Gartner defines the technology.
The Definition of a Sales Force Automation Platform
A Sales Force Automation Platform contains native tools that enable and automate sales activities, processes, and admin responsibilities.
Moreover, it supports the communication of sales teams with customers via different channels and harvests actionable insights via analytics and visualizations from the data it holds.
Such insights enhance contact, pipeline, and opportunity management while paving the way for guided selling and improved forecasts.
Yet, a modern SFA Platform goes beyond internal use cases. Customers and prospects may access parts of the platform, engage in shared experiences, and collaborate with sales personnel.
Additional capabilities now considered standard include: Mobile, IoT devices, and bot features, alongside partner relationship management functionalities, a proposal and quote builder, as well as a composable architecture.
Then, there are the other features that some vendors choose to add to their platforms. According to Gartner, these include:
- Configure Price Quote (CPQ) apps or suites
- Digital sales rooms
- Revenue intelligence
- Sales engagement
- Revenue enablement (digital content management, training and coaching)
After establishing such fundamentals, the analyst split the 13 participating vendors in the report into four categories: Leaders, Challenges, Visionaries, and Niche Players. Here, we review them all.
Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders
Leaders in the Magic Quadrant pair a clear, cutting-edge vision with an ability to demonstrate “solid” business results. They can also showcase a global presence across several sectors, alongside an ability to continually secure above-average customer experience scores. This year’s leaders are:
- Salesforce
- Microsoft
- Oracle
Salesforce
Within Sales Cloud, Salesforce offers “strong” Partner Relationship Management capabilities. These enable complete partner-driven sales cycles, which the CRM leader augments with its Revenue Cloud solution to provide self-service CPQ. That is an advanced capability Gartner notes as a critical strength – alongside the vendor’s product portfolio, ecosystem, and customer community. Meanwhile, Gartner does note pricing increases and packaging as a caution. Yet, it’s worth adding that those price hikes are the first Salesforce has implemented in seven years.
Microsoft
Microsoft has drawn closer to Salesforce in this year’s edition of the Magic Quadrant. A likely cause is its push into generative AI and “compelling roadmap”. Gartner acknowledges this while noting Microsoft’s AI innovation as a fundamental strength, cherry-picking its developments in real-time insight capture, SMS, and “sales sequence effectiveness measurements”. Alongside this, the analyst notes its sales productivity and customer-centric product strategy as significant plus points. Like with Salesforce, Microsoft does – however – fall back on its cost complexity.
Oracle
The innovation across Oracle Sales has gathered great momentum in the past 12 months, with Gartner shedding a positive light on the new embedded dynamic sales guidance solution and configurable similar-account-analysis model. Such innovation, Oracle’s market responsiveness, and its robust capabilities across mobile, devices, and bots have helped to cement the vendor’s leading market position. Nonetheless, the analyst suggests the vendor could do more to support end-users in seeping further value from the platform.
Gartner Magic Quadrant Challengers
Challengers in the Magic Quadrant reel in a high volume of new business, competing with SFA leaders across the globe. Moreover, they have developed a sophisticated systems architecture and understand the evolving needs of sales teams. Where they fall behind leaders is in leading customers into new functional remits with a robust vision. This year’s leaders are:
- Creatio
- Pegasystems
- SugarCRM
Creatio
Like Oracle, Creatio gains plaudits for its guided selling capabilities. An excellent example is how the Sales Creatio platform presents statistical correlations on-screen – showing the potential impact of various actions the salesperson may take. That ability to optimize decision-making garners positive recognition from Gartner – as does Creatio’s buoyant customer community and vertical strategy that covers 20 industries. Where the vendor starts to slip back is in its post-sale customer success management, with Creatio no longer providing in-house consulting services.
Pegasystems
The Pega Sales Automation platform flexes across sectors, with AI and machine learning tailored to specific industries – including healthcare, finance, and telecommunications, amongst others. Gartner considers this strategy a significant strength, alongside Pega’s lead management functionality, varied deployment options, and overall product strategy. The latter covers a “rich portfolio” of critical SFA capabilities – as per the analyst. Despite this, Gartner cautions that Pega trails many of its rivals in the pace at which it releases product enhancements, citing customer feedback.