The 2021 SalesTech Landscape has Landed

If you’re in the salestech game, you’re probably already familiar with Nancy Nardin’s name. Nancy has been tracking down salestech logos, Sherlock Holmes style since 2010 and categorising them impeccably across her yearly Sales Technology Landscape. And yep, you guessed it. With the help of her trusty team at Smart Selling Tools, AKA the Watson to her Sherlock, they’ve just released the brand spankin’ new 2021 Landscape for the world to see.

The 2021 version has had a ‘complete and thorough re-audit’ – Nancy and her team have left no logos left unturned and no corner of the salestech-sphere unexplored. You’ll now find a grand total of 1078 solutions included in the landscape, with a whopping 461 of them being CRM solutions - all of which carefully curated across 45 unique categories.

Salestech, as a category itself has been ticking towards explode mode with several leading salestech companies recently hitting billion-dollar valuations. From Outreach hitting a $1.33 billion valuation last year and SalesLoft reaching a $1.1 billion valuation earlier this year - to name just a few.

It doesn’t take a detective to work out where there’s a boom in supply, there must be a boom in demand.

 

The Big Changes

Category Definitions

The category definitions in Nancy’s SalesTech Landscape have also undergone a recent re-shuffle. This year we’re looking at 45 clear categories distributed among 5 different groups:

  • Reps: Salespeople, Presales, ISRs (Inbound Sales Rep), SDRs (Sales Development Reps)
  • Skills Development & Reinforcement
  • Management & Ops
  • CRM Data Intelligence
  • CRM

Another notable change you’ll spot is that ‘The Rep group’ includes 5 different sub-groups which are aligned with jobs-to-be-done:

  • Prioritize: Call on the best leads and prospects first
  • Engage: Get leads and prospects to hold meaningful conversations
  • Earn: Build trust and credibility, map solutions to needs
  • Close: Get the deal done
  • Expand: Renew, upsell and cross-sell

Sales Enablement is No More

If you’re squinting your eyes trying to spot the Sales Enablement category, we can save you some time. It’s a gonner. The bottom line here is that Sales Enablement solutions tended to fall into one or two categories – Content Management and Training & Coaching. Nardin said that as those two categories represent two separate jobs to be done, it would just cause confusion to call them both Sales Enablement, so they’ve dropped the label altogether and instead when companies offer both types of functionality, their logos have been included in each category.

Presales is on The Rise

A role that according to Nancy has been ‘undeserved by technology’ for too long. We’ve seen several new solutions on the market aimed at Presales, contributing to the key role of demos and proof-of-concepts or pilots. Previously, managers have needed data that just wasn’t possible to get without this new crop of solutions. Keep your eyes peeled for the following categories:

  • Demos
  • Presales Enablement
  • Presales Management

And on the Engagement front, you’ll also spot two shiny new categories:

  • Response-worthy content
  • Embellished Email                            

According to HubSpot, the working life of salespeople has become increasingly hectic in recent years, with 28% of Sales Directors and VPs working more than 60 hours per week on average. By harnessing the power of salestech you can enable your sales team and accelerate their performance through a range of different platforms and apps.

Wanting to hear more from Nancy? Catch her salestech sesh at #MarTechFest Dial Up Series 3!

If you’re looking for more on salestech, check out our latest Salestech Guide eBook