Five Ways Predictive AI Can Improve Sales Performance Management
AI and the right data can help uncover better approaches for account scoring, quota optimization, and related decisions. Here’s how to make it part of your sales strategy.
Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images
When it comes to maximizing growth and revenue, you may be missing something — something big. It’s the harnessing of predictive AI to enhance and deploy sales performance management (SPM). Companies with sizable sales forces — whether in the technology, medical device, pharmaceutical, industrial, or consumer goods industry or some other sector — must consider adopting AI-driven SPM.
Consider the example of NovaMed, a fictitious medical device business based on a composite of companies I’ve worked with and observed. In 2022, the company faced a challenging crossroads: Revenue had declined for three consecutive years, and the previous year’s annual sales had fallen short of targets by 20%.
A closer look suggested that there were significant problems in the sales organization and its processes. Specifically, an outdated sales-territory structure had resulted in overcrowded markets, with too many sales reps fighting over too few accounts. Meanwhile, misaligned quotas and unmotivating incentives resulted in uneven performance across the broader sales team and individual groups within it. As NovaMed’s top sellers departed in frustration, revenue plummeted, helping to explain much of the downward business trend.
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To address the problem, NovaMed leadership worked with outside consultants to implement AI-driven SPM — the strategic alignment of territories, quotas, and incentives through use of precision forecasting to adapt to market dynamics — which ultimately motivated and equipped the sales force to deliver much better results across the board. In situations like this, predictive AI emerges not merely as a tool but a critical application that powers and enhances SPM’s transformative impact in driving revenue, growth, and profitability through the sales engine.
Indeed, using predictive AI to inform SPM decisions became the secret sauce that enabled NovaMed to turn its sales process from woefully inefficient to a strategic advantage within two years. But it required thoughtful movement up a learning curve — from sales data chaos to clarity, insight, and market-leading performance.
This article will make the case to integrate AI-driven SPM into sales strategies and processes, highlighting five priorities organizations must set to make this work. While I will focus on a medical device business example, the ideas and advice below are relevant to any sales-focused business.
Predictive AI and SPM: New Power to Motivate Sellers
While companies have long harnessed value from SPM, predictive AI has turbocharged its potential impact.