Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools will not solve poor pipeline management tools and processes.
AI certainly won’t replace the vital ingredients of a properly formatted sales pipeline report and regular sales leader pipeline reviews.
Sure, AI tools can highlight forecasting distortions and provide opportunity scores, but they can’t fix poor pipeline management either.
AI tools promise to outperform — and out-predict human reps, double forecasting accuracy, and fix the long-standing ‘business blind spot’ of sales forecasting. That won’t happen without a practical and durable sales pipeline management process.
If your pipeline management process is not-well, your sales forecasting process is likely chaotic, time-consuming, and often results in a significant miss, to either the upside or downside.
It’s challenging to shift an organization’s focus to a disciplined, clearer, and more effective pipeline management process.
However, without a shift, it will be practically impossible to improve the consistency and accuracy of the sales forecast. Only once your pipeline management process is in place will you be able to address one of the core issues associated with the sales forecast — salesperson and sales leader judgment.
We even encountered large firms with no sales stages on their pipeline reports, just forecast categories. And we’ve seen all too often organizations that elect to conduct weekly or daily forecast calls to improve forecast consistency and accuracy. We liken this approach to navigating the streets of New York City with a map of Chicago. No matter how many hours you spend navigating, you won’t make progress with the wrong map.
The output of good pipeline management is the correct map for the forecast process.
If your organization can’t trust the sales pipeline data, you can’t help the sales organization refine or improve its forecasting judgment.
Remember, data kills denial, which prevents disaster.
We recommend that organizations defer the evaluation and purchase of AI sales forecasting tools if a disciplined sales pipeline management process is not in place.
If your organization’s sales pipeline management process needs help, let us help facilitate a conversation to help assess, prioritize and mobilize efforts to build a durable and consistent pipeline management process.
There’s a role for AI sales forecasting in an advanced selling organization. Make sure your organization is ready before you deploy, and remember you can’t fix sales forecasting without disciplined pipeline management processes.