Picture this: It’s Monday morning, and instead of drowning in spreadsheet tabs and waiting for last week’s sales report, your team opens one screen that shows everything. Three deals have been sitting in limbo for too long. Your pipeline is trending south. Two big prospects haven’t replied in nearly a week.

No data exports. No report requests. Just answers, right now.

That’s the shift happening across sales floors everywhere. Teams are trading their patchwork of tools and reports for CRM systems with analytics baked right in. And the results? They’re hard to ignore.

Consider this: sales reps currently waste nearly three-quarters of their workweek on tasks that aren’t actually selling. They’re toggling between apps, hunting down information, and updating systems. Meanwhile, companies using real-time CRM dashboards are seeing sales jump by nearly 30% on average.

The CRM analytics market tells the same story—it hit $73.4 billion last year and continues to grow at double-digit rates. When your team can actually see what’s happening in the pipeline without piecing together five different reports, deals move faster.

What Exactly Is a CRM Analytics Dashboard?

Let’s get practical. A CRM analytics dashboard is your sales data, visualized and updated automatically as your team works. Unlike those static reports sitting in someone’s inbox from last Friday, dashboards give you a living view of your pipeline.

Think of it as the difference between checking yesterday’s weather forecast and looking out your window. One tells you what was supposed to happen. The other shows you what’s actually happening right now.

The Dashboard vs. Report Distinction

Here’s the easiest way to understand the difference:

Dashboards are like the scoreboard at a game—they update live while the action unfolds. You glance up and immediately know the score, who’s winning, and how much time remains.

Reports are the post-game analysis. They dive deep into what happened, why it happened, and what patterns emerged. Essential for strategy sessions, but not helpful when you need to make a decision in the next ten minutes.

Sales teams need both, but they serve completely different purposes. You check your dashboard to see if today’s going according to plan. You pull a report to figure out why last quarter missed the mark.

Why This Matters for Your Sales Team

Seeing Your Entire Pipeline at Once

Remember when understanding your pipeline meant opening dozens of individual deal records? Or worse, waiting until the Friday team meeting to find out something went sideways on Tuesday?

Real-time pipeline visibility changes that equation entirely. You get that bird’s-eye view of every opportunity, updated automatically, showing what’s moving forward and what’s stuck.

The impact on how teams operate is substantial. Instead of discovering problems during weekly reviews, reps spot them as they emerge. Has that deal been sitting in negotiation for three weeks? It triggers attention before it becomes a lost cause.

This immediate visibility also means faster responses to customer needs. When a high-value prospect goes radio silent, your dashboard flags it immediately. When a territory starts underperforming, managers can step in while there’s still time to turn things around.

Catching Deals Before They Die

Modern CRMs use AI to identify at-risk opportunities based on patterns such as missed engagements, long sales cycles, and lack of follow-up. These systems notify the right people when deals need immediate attention.

Automatic tracking of deal velocity, win rates, and pipeline health provides alerts when opportunities stagnate. If several deals consistently get stuck during contract negotiations, that pattern indicates a systemic issue that requires process adjustments or additional resources.

One private equity firm struggled with forecasts that were regularly missed by 25-30%. After implementing enrichment tools that automatically tracked meeting frequency and engagement signals, they improved forecast accuracy by 18% in just three months. The difference? Visibility into which deals had real momentum versus those just occupying pipeline space.

More Accurate Revenue Forecasting

Predictive forecasting typically improves accuracy by 20-30% compared to traditional gut-feel methods. While intuition-based forecasting often misses targets by 10% or more, data-driven models can achieve 75-95% accuracy with clean data and consistent usage.

The stakes are significant. Poor data quality costs companies 15-25% of their annual revenue, with inaccurate forecasting being a major culprit. Yet 55% of sales leaders admit they lack confidence in their forecasts, and 67% of organizations don’t even have a formal forecasting process.

CRM dashboards address this by pulling real-time deal data and historical patterns to generate more accurate revenue projections. If deals from a specific industry typically close faster, the forecast automatically adjusts expectations for similar prospects. Revenue projections reflect actual sales behavior instead of optimistic guesses.

Getting Time Back to Actually Sell

Sales reps spend 40% of their time on administrative work instead of selling. That’s two full days every week lost to non-revenue activities. The problem intensifies when teams juggle an average of 10 different tools per day, with 66% of reps reporting they’re overwhelmed by the sheer number.

Tool fragmentation creates more than just screen-switching frustration. Research from UC Irvine found it takes an average of 23 minutes to fully refocus on a task after an interruption. Multiply that by dozens of daily tool switches, and you understand why only 28% of a sales rep’s time goes to actual selling.

Unified CRM dashboards eliminate this waste. Pipedrive users cut administrative hours by 40% by consolidating data into one view. Instead of exporting reports, updating spreadsheets, and hunting across platforms, reps see everything they need in a single location.

The Metrics That Actually Matter

Revenue and Performance Tracking

Your dashboard should always show monthly and quarterly revenue against targets. This comparison reveals whether you’re on track or need to accelerate activity. Without this baseline, other metrics lack meaning.

Average deal size reveals whether pricing pressure or successful upselling is driving it. A declining average signals competitive threats or discounting problems. An increasing average indicates effective value positioning or movement upmarket.

Win rate measures the percentage of qualified opportunities you close successfully. This metric exposes whether pipeline quality matches quantity. Revenue per rep normalized across territories identifies top performers and highlights coaching opportunities for struggling team members.

Pipeline Health Indicators

Average sales cycle length by stage shows where deals typically accelerate or stall. If opportunities consistently spend three weeks in contract review, you know exactly where to focus process improvements or add resources.

Conversion rates between pipeline stages reveal bottlenecks in your sales process. A 60% conversion from discovery to proposal, but only 20% from proposal to close signals problems with proposal quality or pricing strategy.

Deal velocity and progression trends indicate pipeline momentum. Slowing velocity signals future revenue shortfalls before they affect quarterly results. Pipeline value by stage and territory helps managers allocate resources and set realistic forecasts.

Activity and Engagement Tracking

Sales rep quota attainment shows individual performance against targets. This metric identifies who needs coaching and who deserves recognition. It also surfaces territory or product issues when multiple reps in the same segment underperform.

Notable open and closed deals keep everyone focused on the biggest opportunities and recent wins. Celebrating closed deals builds momentum. Highlighting major open opportunities ensures they receive appropriate attention.

Year-to-date performance provides long-term context beyond monthly fluctuations. Individual and team comparisons create healthy competition and identify best practices worth replicating across the organization.

How Many Metrics Should You Track?

Display a maximum of five to seven key metrics. The human mind struggles to process more than seven pieces of information simultaneously. More widgets create clutter instead of clarity.

Every KPI must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. Vague metrics like “customer satisfaction” need to be defined. How do you measure it? What’s the target? When do you review it?

Select the most impactful metrics to concentrate team efforts rather than tracking everything possible. Real-time tracking, displayed via customizable dashboards, makes data easier to understand, empowering teams to spot trends and adjust their approach.

Customizing Dashboards by Role

Why Different Roles Need Different Views

Most CRM platforms enable role-based dashboard customization, ensuring each team member sees relevant metrics without clutter. A sales rep doesn’t need company-wide forecasts that might distract from personal numbers. An executive doesn’t need granular activity logs.

Different dashboards for sales reps, managers, and executives match information to each role’s decision-making authority. Reps focus on their pipeline and daily activities. Managers monitor team performance and resource allocation. Executives track strategic metrics and overall business health.

Role-specific views enhance productivity by reducing time spent hunting for critical information. When everyone sees exactly what they need to do their job, adoption increases, and data-driven decision-making becomes part of the culture.

What Sales Reps Need to See

Personal pipeline and quota progress should be front and center, giving reps immediate visibility into performance. They need to see how close they are to monthly targets and which deals will get them there.

Upcoming tasks and deals requiring attention keep reps focused on the highest-priority activities. A dashboard that surfaces the three most urgent opportunities prevents important follow-ups from slipping through cracks.

Individual performance tracking without company-wide forecasts maintains focus on controllable actions. Quick visibility into which opportunities are approaching closure helps reps prioritize time effectively.

What Sales Managers Need to See

A pipeline snapshot across all team members gives managers the aerial view needed for resource allocation. They can see which reps need support and which territories are trending below forecast.

Average sales cycles and deal amounts reveal team-wide patterns that individual reps might miss. If the entire team’s average deal size is declining, that’s a strategic issue requiring management intervention.

Conversion rates by rep and territory identify coaching opportunities and best practices. Declining win rates and underperforming territory identification enable timely interventions while there’s still time to salvage the quarter.

What Executives Need to See

Year-to-date performance against target KPIs provides executives with the strategic view they need without operational details. They want to know if the business is on track, not which individual deals are in negotiation.

Overall sales performance versus forecast shows whether revenue projections remain achievable. Top sales reps by quota attainment highlight talent worth retaining and promoting.

An aerial view, devoid of granular operational details, keeps executives focused on strategic decisions. They need to spot trends and make resource allocation decisions, not manage individual deals.

Building Dashboards Without Code

Drag-and-Drop Simplicity

No-code platforms eliminate the need for coding in dashboards, making customization accessible to anyone regardless of technical background. Sales teams can create and modify their views without submitting IT tickets or waiting weeks for development resources.

Drag-and-drop builders let users select widgets, arrange layouts, and configure KPIs through visual interfaces. You click, drag, and drop components into place. No SQL queries. No custom code. No technical debt.

Sales teams create and customize dashboards independently, iterating based on what actually helps them sell. Visual tools eliminate dependency on IT teams, accelerating implementation and ensuring dashboards evolve with changing business needs.

How Long Does Setup Take?

Basic templates take hours to set up when using pre-built configurations. You select a template, adjust a few settings, and start using it the same day.

Complex custom implementations can take weeks to build from scratch with extensive customization. These projects involve defining KPIs, mapping data sources, designing layouts, and testing with actual users.

No-code platforms reduce setup to minutes for standard dashboard types. Pre-built templates accelerate standard views like pipeline tracking, quota monitoring, and activity summaries that most sales teams need.

Platform-Specific Features

Monday CRM offers drag-and-drop components with simple configuration, making it accessible to users of any technical skill level. The platform provides visual, no-code tools that anyone can master quickly.

Customizable from the smallest details without technical skills, monday CRM lets teams adjust colors, layouts, widgets, and data sources through intuitive interfaces. This flexibility means dashboards can match specific workflows without compromise.

Suitable for small businesses through enterprise scale, the platform grows with your organization. A five-person startup and a 500-person sales team both benefit from the same no-code customization capabilities.

Getting Dashboard Implementation Right

Start with Clear Objectives

Begin by identifying the business objectives your dashboard should address. Are you trying to improve forecast accuracy? Reduce sales cycle length? Increase average deal size? The objective determines which metrics matter.

Align relevant KPIs to specific objectives rather than displaying every available metric. If your goal is to reduce sales cycle length, track time in each stage, conversion rates, and deal velocity. Leave revenue metrics for a different dashboard.

Data visualization illuminates the path to goals when designed with purpose. Each widget should answer a specific question or highlight a particular risk. Random metrics create noise instead of insight.

Design for Specific Users

Create dashboards for specific teams, roles, and hierarchies rather than forcing everyone to use the same view. What helps a sales rep close deals differs from what helps a manager allocate resources.

Executive dashboards provide an aerial view of strategic performance without operational details. Analyst dashboards delve into granular details that would overwhelm executives but are necessary for identifying process improvements.

Sales teams emphasize leads, conversions, and sales funnels. Marketing teams focus on campaign performance and lead quality. Customer success teams track retention and expansion opportunities. Same CRM, different dashboards.

Avoid Information Overload

Track only KPIs that truly matter instead of displaying every available metric. Too many widgets overwhelm teams rather than help, burying critical signals in the noise.

Tailor dashboards so teams see relevant data without scrolling through information that doesn’t apply to their role. Fewer, higher-impact measures outperform broad metric collections because they focus attention on the highest priorities.

Excessive metrics bury signals among noise and make dashboards unproductive. Display only metrics that will get acted upon. If no one changes their behavior in response to a metric, remove it from the dashboard.

Set the Right Refresh Rate

Critical metrics should refresh in real time or every 15-30 minutes to provide up-to-date visibility into pipeline status and deal health. Stale data defeats the purpose of a dashboard.

Refresh frequency depends on data volume and system capabilities. High-volume transactional systems might update every few minutes. Lower-volume B2B pipelines might refresh every 30 minutes without issue.

Activity metrics update more frequently than monthly summaries. Daily call volume needs real-time updates. Year-to-date revenue can refresh hourly without losing value.

Comparing Popular CRM Platforms

Salesforce: The Enterprise Powerhouse

Salesforce offers Revenue Intelligence, powered by CRM Analytics, which equips sales teams with purpose-built analytics across the entire sales cycle. The platform provides out-of-the-box intelligence and analytics that enable accurate forecasting and pipeline management.

The reporting features offer extensive customization with in-depth capabilities. You can go as deep as needed, but powerful reporting doesn’t require CRM expertise. The tool understands what information your team needs to succeed.

Best for: Enterprise sales organizations that require extensive customization and are willing to invest in implementation.

Advantages:

• Deep customization options that match complex sales processes and unique business requirements
• An enterprise scale that handles massive data volumes and user counts
• Advanced analytics with built-in AI and predictive capabilities

Limitations:

• Steep learning curve requiring significant training investment and often dedicated administrators
• High cost that reaches enterprise levels quickly, especially with advanced analytics features
• Overwhelming options that can paralyze teams needing straightforward pipeline visibility

HubSpot: The Balanced Choice

HubSpot’s custom report builder strikes a balance, hitting a sweet spot between the complexity of Salesforce and the limitations of simpler platforms. The platform allows tailored reports without requiring steep learning curves.

Unified dashboards combine sales and marketing data into a single place, providing a comprehensive, real-time view of business performance. Automated data capture eliminates redundant manual work, saving hours each week.

Best for: Mid-market B2B teams wanting unified sales and marketing visibility.

Advantages:

• Unified data brings sales and marketing metrics together in one dashboard
• Intuitive builder for custom reports without Salesforce complexity
• Strong automation that reduces the administrative burden significantly

Limitations:

• Marketing bias, as the platform originated as marketing automation
• Pricing tiers where advanced reporting requires higher-tier subscriptions
• Limited customization compared to Salesforce for truly complex reporting needs

Pipedrive: The User-Friendly Option

Pipedrive offers insightful reporting tools in a user-friendly dashboard that prioritizes ease of use. You can sort deals by recency, person, activity, and win-loss filters to gain actionable insights.

The Statistics tab provides detailed reports on individual prospects and companies. Users reduced administrative hours by 40% by consolidating data into Pipedrive’s streamlined interface.

Best for: Small to mid-sized sales teams prioritizing simplicity and quick adoption.

Advantages:

• User-friendly interface requiring minimal training and driving rapid adoption
• Quick setup, getting dashboards running in hours instead of weeks
• Affordable pricing, lower than enterprise platforms, without sacrificing core functionality

Limitations:

• Limited depth for advanced analytics and complex reporting
• Scaling challenges as organizations reach enterprise size
• Fewer customization options compared to larger platforms

Pipeliner CRM: Visual Intelligence

Pipeliner CRM delivers visual pipeline management with instant visual dashboards that surface deal status and sales health at a glance. The platform’s philosophy centers on making complex sales data immediately understandable through visual representations.

Built-in analytics provide forecasting, territory management, and performance tracking without requiring separate BI tools. The visual approach means reps spend less time interpreting data and more time acting on it.

Best for: Visual learners and teams wanting intuitive pipeline management without technical complexity.

Advantages:

• Visual clarity with a unique interface, making complex sales data immediately understandable
• Instant insights where visual dashboards surface pipeline health faster than traditional views
• No separate BI tools needed with built-in analytics

Limitations:

• Specialized approach where visual-first design works best for teams preferring graphical data
• Customization boundaries where the visual framework may limit extensive modifications
• Learning curve for teams accustomed to traditional list-based CRM interfaces

Zoho CRM: The Budget Option

Zoho provides customizable dashboards and reports to monitor the entire sales cycle. Users can incorporate CRM data from leads, contacts, campaigns, and tasks into unified views.

Predefined templates enable quick dashboard setup for standard use cases. However, advanced analytics requires the Ultimate edition or a separate add-on, which limits capabilities on lower tiers.

Best for: Budget-conscious teams needing standard dashboards without advanced analytics.

Advantages:

• Competitive pricing, lower than most alternatives, with solid core functionality
• Quick templates accelerate initial setup with predefined dashboards
• Comprehensive modules offering broad features beyond just sales analytics

Limitations:

• Limited analytics, where advanced reporting requires expensive upgrades
• Interface complexity is less intuitive than Pipedrive or HubSpot, despite a lower price
• Integration challenges connecting to non-Zoho tools without technical expertise

Microsoft Dynamics 365: The Microsoft Ecosystem Play

Dynamics 365 Sales is built on Dataverse and integrates natively with Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint. This makes it powerful for organizations already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Copilot for Sales delivers record summaries and AI-generated email drafts. Pricing starts at $65 per user monthly for Professional, $105 for Enterprise, and $150 for Premium on annual plans.

Best for: Organizations heavily invested in Microsoft 365 wanting seamless integration.

Advantages:

• Microsoft integration with native connection to Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint
• AI capabilities, where Copilot features provide intelligent summaries and recommendations
• Enterprise features are robust enough for large, complex sales organizations

Limitations:

• Microsoft dependency, where it works best within the ecosystem
• Complex pricing with multiple SKUs and add-ons making total cost difficult to predict
• Steep learning curve, where powerful features require significant training investment

What Mid-Market B2B Teams Actually Need

The Mid-Market Sweet Spot

Mid-market organizations need systems sophisticated enough to support complex sales processes yet practical enough to be adopted rapidly without dedicated IT resources. This balance proves challenging as most platforms optimize for either simplicity or enterprise complexity.

Advanced reporting on sales performance, pipeline health, and customer behavior becomes critical at mid-market scale. With multiple territories, products, and sales stages, basic reporting no longer provides sufficient visibility for effective management.

The sweet spot combines enterprise-grade analytics with user-friendly interfaces that don’t require consultants to configure. Teams need dashboards that they can customize themselves as their processes evolve.

Must-Have B2B Features

Customizable dashboards configured for every team and role ensure relevant visibility across the organization. Sales reps, managers, and executives each need different views without cluttering everyone’s interface with irrelevant metrics.

Seamless integrations allowing data flow between platforms eliminate manual data entry and synchronization headaches. When your CRM connects to email, calendar, marketing automation, and customer success tools, the dashboards reflect the full customer interactions.

Advanced lead management, qualification, sorting, and prioritization help teams focus on the highest-value opportunities. Dashboards should surface which leads are most likely to convert based on engagement, fit, and historical patterns.

The Great CRM Migration

81% of sales leaders are considering CRM replacement in the next year, according to the State of Sales Tech 2025 report. This staggering number reflects widespread dissatisfaction with current platforms.

Finding CRMs with advanced AI, forecasting, and ease of use is challenging. Most platforms excel at one dimension while falling short on others. Enterprise systems offer powerful analytics but require extensive training. Simple systems are easy to use but lack depth.

The replacement trend creates an opportunity for platforms that balance sophistication with usability. Mid-market teams want enterprise capabilities without the complexity or cost of enterprise systems.

Built-In vs. Third-Party Analytics

Why Native Dashboards Win

Sellers spend most of their time in the CRM because it contains the information they need to close deals. Having dashboards on the same platform provides a holistic view with easy, in-depth dives without requiring extra time or effort.

Sales dashboards allow a focus on selling rather than administrative tasks. When analytics live in your CRM, you don’t waste time exporting data, building spreadsheets, or switching between tools.

Native dashboards eliminate the need for manual data export from CRM source systems, which is highly time-consuming and error-prone. Exported data has a limited scope and becomes static immediately, left in an unviewed spreadsheet while your pipeline continues evolving.

The Integration Advantage

Unified data systems sync information automatically across platforms, eliminating redundant manual work and ensuring customer information stays current everywhere it lives. When one system updates, all connected tools reflect those changes immediately.

Automatic duplicate detection saves time on manual cleanup. Information updates propagate automatically to all connected systems, freeing time for high-value work like actually selling.

Implementation Timeline Expectations

Initial Setup Phase

Basic template dashboards take hours to configure when using pre-built options. You select a template, adjust settings, and start using it the same day.

Complex custom implementations can take weeks to build from scratch with extensive customization. These projects involve defining KPIs, mapping data sources, designing layouts, and testing with users.

No-code platforms reduce setup time to minutes for standard dashboard types using drag-and-drop builders and preconfigured templates.

When Predictive Features Pay Off

Initial insights appear within 2-4 weeks of implementing predictive forecasting. Immediate benefits include better pipeline visibility and deal prioritization.

Forecast accuracy improves as the system learns from more data. Optimal forecast precision typically peaks after 3-6 months of consistent use.

❔ Common Questions Answered

What separates dashboards from traditional reports?

Dashboards present real-time data in a visual format to provide quick insights and support day-to-day decision-making. Reports are detailed and static, delving into historical data and trends, and are often exported for presentations or quarterly reviews. Think of dashboards as your live sales scoreboard, while reports are the post-game analysis.

How much time can teams save with unified dashboards?

Unified data systems eliminate redundant manual work by syncing customer information automatically across connected platforms. Pipedrive users reduced administrative hours by 40% by consolidating data into a single view. Automatic duplicate detection saves additional time on manual cleanup.

Do dashboards really improve forecast accuracy?

Predictive forecasting improves accuracy by 20-30% over traditional methods. Data-driven models achieve 75-95% accuracy when properly implemented. CRMs pull real-time deal data and historical trends to make more accurate revenue projections and automatically adjust expectations based on actual sales behavior.

Can anyone build dashboards without technical skills?

Drag-and-drop builders eliminate coding requirements completely. Sales teams customize dashboards independently without IT involvement. No-code platforms are accessible to users with any technical background, allowing them to adjust layouts, widgets, and data sources through visual interfaces.

How often should dashboard data update?

Critical metrics should refresh in real time or every 15-30 minutes to provide up-to-date visibility into pipeline status. Frequency depends on data volume and system capabilities. Activity metrics update more frequently than monthly summaries—daily call volume needs real-time updates, while year-to-date revenue can refresh hourly.

Which metrics are essential for sales dashboards?

Revenue versus targets, average deal size, and win rate form the foundation. Pipeline health indicators include deal velocity and conversion rates. Display no more than five to seven reports for comprehension—the human mind struggles to process more than seven ideas at a time.

How do role-based dashboards drive adoption?

Each role sees information most relevant to them, reducing time spent hunting for critical information. Role-specific views enhance productivity by consolidating critical data into a single location. This fosters a culture of data-driven decision-making across the organization.

Why choose built-in dashboards over separate analytics tools?

Sellers already spend most of their time in the CRM, so having dashboards on the same platform provides holistic views without extra effort. Native dashboards eliminate manual, time-consuming data export processes. Data remains current versus static exported spreadsheets that become outdated immediately.

The Bottom Line

CRM dashboards reduce administrative time by 40%, boost sales by 29%, and improve forecast accuracy by 20-30%, based on real-world implementation data across platforms like Pipedrive, monday CRM, and Nutshell. These aren’t small improvements—they represent fundamental changes in how sales teams operate.

Mid-market B2B organizations benefit most from role-based dashboards, no-code customization, and real-time pipeline visibility without requiring dedicated IT resources. The fact that 81% of sales leaders are considering replacing their CRM signals widespread recognition that current tools aren’t meeting modern needs.

When choosing a platform, prioritize native analytics depth, ease of customization, and seamless integration over adding third-party reporting layers that create data synchronization challenges. Since sellers spend most of their time in CRM anyway, having analytics in the same platform eliminates the friction that kills adoption and buries insights in unused spreadsheets.

Top 5 B2B CRMs for the Mid-Market

The mid-market segment has unique B2B CRM requirements: sophisticated enough to support complex sales processes, yet practical enough to drive rapid adoption without dedicated IT resources. Here’s our definitive ranking.

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1. Pipeliner CRM

Why It Leads for B2B CRM Mid-Market

Pipeliner CRM was purpose-built for the mid-market sweet spot, delivering enterprise-grade capabilities without enterprise-grade complexity or cost.

Key Differentiators:

• Visual Pipeline Management — The industry’s most intuitive visual interface means sales teams actually use it. Adoption rates consistently exceed 90%, compared to the industry average of 40-50%.
• No-Code Customization — Sales operations can configure workflows, fields, and automations without IT involvement or expensive consultants.
• Rapid Time-to-Value — Average implementation in weeks, not months. Most customers are fully operational within 30-60 days.
• Mobile CRM — Full capability critical for field sales teams.
• Voyager AI — Native AI assistant that enhances productivity without requiring data science expertise.
• Transparent Pricing — All-inclusive pricing eliminates the “gotcha” add-on costs that plague competitors.

Best For: Mid-market companies seeking a B2B CRM their teams will actually embrace, with sophisticated functionality that doesn’t require a six-figure implementation budget.

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2. HubSpot Sales Hub (Professional/Enterprise)

The Inbound Marketing Giant’s B2B CRM Sales Play

HubSpot built its reputation on marketing automation and expanded into B2B CRM. Strong ecosystem, but designed primarily around inbound methodology.

Considerations for Mid-Market:

• Excels when marketing and sales alignment around inbound is the priority
• Pricing escalates significantly as contact databases grow
• Advanced sales features require Enterprise tier ($150/user/month)
• Best suited for companies already invested in HubSpot’s marketing ecosystem
• Less flexible for complex B2B sales processes or outbound-heavy models

Limitation: Companies with traditional B2B sales motions may find themselves adapting to HubSpot’s methodology rather than the reverse.

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3. Salesforce Sales Cloud (Professional Edition)

The Enterprise Default—Scaled Down

Salesforce dominates enterprise B2B CRM but attempts to serve mid-market through its Professional Edition.

Considerations for Mid-Market:

• Unmatched AppExchange ecosystem
• Brand credibility with boards and investors
• However: implementation typically requires certified partners ($$$)
• Total cost of ownership 3-5x the license fee when factoring customization
• Feature richness creates complexity that hampers adoption
• Professional Edition lacks many features that make Salesforce powerful

Limitation: Mid-market companies often end up paying enterprise prices for a fraction of the capability, or struggling with a simplified version that doesn’t deliver the “Salesforce promise.”

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4. Pipedrive

The SMB Favorite Stretching Upmarket

Pipedrive offers excellent simplicity and was an early pioneer in visual pipeline management.

Considerations for Mid-Market:

• Very intuitive interface with quick setup
• Affordable entry point
• However: feature depth becomes limiting as organizations scale
• Reporting and analytics are basic compared to mid-market needs
• Limited workflow automation capabilities
• Lacks robust forecasting and territory management

Limitation: Companies frequently outgrow Pipedrive within 18-24 months, triggering disruptive migrations just as the business hits its growth stride.

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5. Zoho CRM

The Value Play with Trade-offs

Zoho offers aggressive pricing and a broad suite of integrated applications.

Considerations for Mid-Market:

• Excellent price-to-feature ratio on paper
• Strong for companies already in the Zoho ecosystem
• However: user interface feels dated and fragmented
• Customer support responsiveness is inconsistent
• Customization often requires technical expertise
• Integration outside Zoho ecosystem can be challenging

Limitation: The “value” proposition erodes when factoring the productivity cost of a less intuitive interface and the hidden effort required for customization.

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The Mid-Market Verdict

Criteria	Pipeliner	HubSpot	Salesforce	Pipedrive	Zoho
Time to Value	★★★★★	★★★☆☆	★★☆☆☆	★★★★☆.	★★★☆☆
User Adoption	★★★★★	★★★★☆	★★★☆☆	★★★★☆	★★★☆☆
Mid-Market Fit	★★★★★	★★★★☆	★★★☆☆	★★★☆☆	★★★☆☆
TCO Transparency	★★★★★	★★★☆☆	★★☆☆☆	★★★★☆	★★★★☆
Scalability	★★★★★	★★★★☆	★★★★★	★★★☆☆	★★★★☆
Customization (No-Code)	★★★★★	★★★☆☆	★★☆☆☆	★★★☆☆	★★★☆☆

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Bottom Line: Mid-market companies deserve a B2B CRM built for their reality—not an enterprise solution dumbed down or an SMB tool stretched thin. Pipeliner CRM occupies this purpose-built position, delivering the sophistication growing companies need with the usability that ensures teams actually use it.

The next in our series on CRM adoption takes up an important topic: the 8 reasons CRM implementations are never actually completed.

1. Lack of Clear Processes

When a CRM adoption is not completed in a company, it’s easy to blame one particular individual or group. But one basic reason is a lack of clear processes. We’ll get into this more in detail further along in this article, but if a company has not detailed the goals and purposes of a CRM, and precisely the route the CRM adoption is going to take, the project will never get completed.

2. High Management Priority

A top reason, probably the top reason, that a CRM solution doesn’t get adopted is that it is not a top priority for company management.

If you think about it, CRM is more important than even a company location. For example, today many companies are moving from Germany due to deindustrialization. Let us say we’re on the board of a company seeking a new location. Too many companies would prioritize such a relocation over and above CRM.

CRM, even in such a circumstance, must remain the top priority. Why? It is the repository and the system for customer data. If we don’t have accurate customer data appropriately utilized, we will have no customers. If we have no customers, we have no company. We won’t need to worry about moving, as we won’t have a company to move, will we?

3. Lack of Head of Project

When CRM isn’t a top management priority, someone seldom takes charge of a CRM project and runs with it.

If a company has a security issue, someone is immediately in charge of resolving it. Why doesn’t CRM have that same kind of priority? If you lose your customers, you lose everything. You need CRM to be effective and efficient; if you aren’t, you’re gone.

It can be the case that a company is overwhelmed, and there isn’t someone who can add heading a CRM project to their workload. In such an instance, the company should—again as a top priority—invest in a consultant to do this job.

It can also happen that heading a CRM project becomes a “hot potato” that nobody wants. They don’t want to be blamed if the project fails. They don’t want to be demoted or fired.

In such a case, the person forced into that position will often go to the CRM industry bestseller as a point of security, which may not even be suitable for their company. They should instead be truly shopping around and evaluating the best solution for their enterprise.

4. Lack of Documented Requirements

A company, in shopping for a CRM solution, will often create a shortlist of systems to evaluate. That only makes sense, however, when the company has clearly laid out its CRM requirements and put them into a document. How can a CRM project be accomplished if such requirements aren’t clearly established and documented?

It happens all too often that we, as a CRM vendor, cannot fulfill one potential customer demand. What are they demanding? That we, free of charge, become their project manager and consult them, informing them of their requirements. Since we’re not inside that company and aren’t intimately familiar with all of its issues, this is impossible.

It would be the same as someone purchasing multiple television sets for their home. They need to connect and set them up, and they expect the company they buy from to perform this service. The company will politely refuse and inform the buyer they need to purchase such a service separately. The company selling them the TV sets may not even offer that service, in which case the customer will have to hire someone else.

In any case, we cannot perform such a service for CRM—the buyer must hire a consultant or otherwise handle it in-house.

I understand that a company might have fears of making the wrong decision. But nailing down these requirements isn’t rocket science—it just requires some patience and homework.

5. Responsibility on Both Sides

The vendor certainly has responsibility, too—and if the vendor doesn’t take that responsibility, that can also lead to the CRM project not being completed.

The vendor must ensure that meetings with the buyer occur at the right times, that there is an agenda, a deadline, and lists of tasks that must be accomplished before the next meeting. If these things are not done, the vendor cannot proceed with the sale. If the buyer invests a considerable amount of funds, and the vendor doesn’t point out a potential waste of money, the fault lies with the vendor.

The customer may not fully understand what they themselves need, based on what they’re asking for, and the vendor might need to point this out. Let’s say, for example, the customer wants to meet about potential CRM integrations with the company’s systems.

Such integrations are not nearly as complex as they once were. In the “old days,” there were no OpenAPIs, APIs in general, or connectors. A number of years ago, my company was a partner with Autonomy, a company that developed pattern recognition software. We required connectors to different databases, and Autonomy had to create them.

Today, there are many available APIs. There is even efficient middleware from vendors such as Zapier or Tray.io. Connections are now easy to make.

If a company wants to integrate CRM with its ERP, a vendor must fully understand the customer’s request and actual requirements. If this understanding isn’t fully established, the vendor can’t know the customer’s CRM needs.

If a customer wishes to integrate CRM with their ERP system, we must ask questions such as, “What kind of integration do you want? Unidirectional? Bidirectional? Daily? Every minute? Does data transfer require approval, or can it be done without approval? Is every salesperson allowed to make changes in CRM that then transfer to ERP?”

Let’s assume a customer wishes data to be transferred daily from ERP to CRM. That is easily accomplished once the customer has fully defined their data and fields for us. We would then need to know the business requirements. What should the data do?

Once these things are understood, we as a vendor know the business scope. We can now analyze the customer’s requirements and present different approaches. It’s then a rapid matter of turning this analysis over to our development. We can then create a test space for the client to test out CRM without conflicting with live data.

As you can see, there are project leaders on both sides—the vendors and the buyers. If both make it a priority, CRM adoption can be accomplished in a couple of weeks. The customer then has full use of their data.

6. “Too Many Cooks”

The purchasing enterprise will realize the benefit of CRM the moment they correctly prioritize the project—when they firmly commit the correct resources both in terms of personnel and finances. It is then clearly viewed not as a technical problem but one of human willingness.

In an analogous example, I recently saw an interview with Charles Duke, one of the Apollo 16 astronauts who went to the moon. The interview covered his specific mission and the whole Apollo program, which I myself covered in an ebook.

The priority given in the Apollo missions was that NASA had a vision to fulfill, and they turned it over to those who could decide and make decisions on the ground. Those people then made those decisions and executed the mission.

The problem with CRM implementation can often be an issue of “too many cooks.” A company must appoint someone who is allowed to make a decision. Put a competent person in charge and let them get on with it.

7. Implement in Iterations

When you put that person in charge, don’t expect the first stage to be totally correct. Every step in CRM implementation is an iteration, and you must not expect the first iteration to be perfect—learn from it and make it better with the next iteration.

This idea comes from the modern method of software development. In the old days, there was the classic “waterfall” development method in which programming of the entire requirement was done all at once, from start to finish. To make improvements, programmers had to go back and start again at the very beginning.

Today’s development approach, called Scrum, is conducted in incremental iterations. One iteration is completed, the programmers meet and go over it, and then the next iteration is done. This method created a new boom in the software industry.

Companies utilizing this same type of methodology for CRM implementation will see their implementation complete much more rapidly.

8. And On to Infinity

Then we reach reason #8, which turned on its side is the symbol for infinity. Because in reality, a CRM implementation, even when brought up to the point of high efficiency and success, will never be truly done. There will always be tweaks and improvements.

As you can see, CRM implementation does not have to be complex. A company simply needs to be willing to sit down, learn all about their requirements, document them, and share them with a CRM vendor such as Pipeliner.

P.S. What Does Pipeliner Do Differently?

The above 8 points apply generally to every CRM implementation. What does Pipeliner do differently?

What Pipeliner does differently boils down to engagement between our product and the people. We go the extra mile with the customer to fully address their CRM requirements.

A recent case study demonstrates the gratitude customers have for the extra measures, exceptional service and value Pipeliner brings to the table.

For further reading, check out these white papers and eBooks by Nikolaus Kimla:

CRM Onboarding

Pipeliner CRM: The Concepts Behind the Features

 

 

 

Sales pipelines are used to aggregate the progress of potential customers all through the sales life cycle. They are usually visually represented in CRM software so sales team members can easily keep track of the deals that are in the pipeline at any time. A sales pipeline is a collection of potential customers for a business. It consists of different stages, which are:

• Lead
• Initial Interaction
• Qualification
• Proposal
• Commitment
• Close

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is used to manage a business’s interactions and relations with new and existing customers. It helps them streamline their operations, stay connected to customers, and boost profitability.

Before internet usage became mainstream and competition was not high, potential customers of certain businesses would have to attend conferences to learn about the products being launched. However, now that there are more people are able to set up their own businesses, there is a struggle to gain market share. This has prompted the need for businesses to connect with new and potential customers better, or else they might lose them to their competitors.

This is where pipeline CRM software comes in, as businesses can use them to touch base with their customers any time they deem it necessary. Here are some key ways CRM software improves sales pipelines:

1. Proper Lead Management

Depending on the nature of the business involved, it could take any time from days to months to convert a lead into a customer.  The longer a sales cycle continues, the more likely it is to lose leads along the way. Using a pipeline CRM software to manage this process would make it possible to identify top-quality leads and focus on guiding them into further stages of the sales cycle. This is because they have a higher chance of being converted, which improves sales efficiency.

2. Greater Sales Forecast Accuracy

Being able to accurately forecast sales helps build business stability as it helps the key stakeholders optimize and identify new business opportunities. Creation of more products is usually based on sales projection to avoid wastage of resources. Using CRM software properly over a long period can help a business analyze consumer behavior to know when there is going to be a spike or dip in demand. This allows them to tailor their operations accordingly and save money in the long run. One of the CRM challenges businesses may face here, according to SmallBusiness HQ, is the scalability of the CRM software. Choose a tool that grows with your business and you can continue to forecast sales accurately.

3. Better Market Segmentation

These days, marketing efforts involve a scan of the general public to find potential customers and analyze their underlying reason for being interested in the product being sold. This allows businesses to categorize their customers (new and existing) into different groups based on certain characteristics. Afterwards, it would be easier to target each category with marketing materials tailor-made for them. CRM software facilitates the collection of consumer data, so their trends and patterns can be analyzed. This information gained will let business owners calculate the lifetime value of each category when deals with leads start closing.

Endnote

Having a well-maintained sales pipeline is vital for businesses that are into the sales of products. Additionally, using a pipeline CRM software to reinforce sales efforts can improve it significantly and lead to a higher lead conversion, and more profit for the business in question.

CRM Necessary for the Digital Transformation

You might find the statement “CRM has failed in the past” to be a bit strong and sweeping. But at the time I brought my company into the CRM space, the predominant phrase heard about the subject from salespeople was this: “CRM sucks!” Additionally, there wasn’t at the time (nor is there still) a clear market leader in the CRM space—even though according to g2.com, there are over 600 CRM solutions, and 10 targeted at bigger companies. These facts put together clearly demonstrate that CRM certainly has not succeeded in the past.

Much has been written about CRM—it’s importance, what it should consist of, why a company should use it, and so on. So what have I done differently with this ebook? Quite simply, I have taken a very objective look at the exploding state of technology, what that means to a business, how CRM must encompass it, and where we must go.

Whether you’re in the market for a CRM solution, or already have one but are curious about where today’s digital business world is heading, I think you’ll find this information very helpful. Drop me a line and let me know what you think!

Chapter 1: CRM Has Failed in the Past. Will It Now Succeed?

Yes, it’s true. Going back roughly 25 years ago to the original development of CRM and coming forward fairly recently, it could certainly be said that the first iteration of CRM applications has been a failure. They’ve been costly, incredibly difficult and expensive to implement, and additionally expensive to administrate. These factors comprised the first part of the failure.

Chapter 2: What Should a CRM Really Be Today?

A prime reason for CRM user complaints has been the amount of data entry required from users, especially salespeople—without any actual assistance and help back to them from the CRM solution. Sometime back a cry began to be raised by users for CRM to be simplified and made easier when it came to data entry.

Chapter 3: Here’s What We’re Doing About It

Interestingly, we brought Pipeliner into the marketplace at a time when the market was actually overrun with CRM applications. One could certainly ask, with some justification, why we did this.

Chapter 4: How Is CRM Helping Today?

Now let’s take a look at how and why Pipeliner factually and practically empowers salespeople. If you utilize CRM anywhere at any time, this could be very valuable information for you.

Chapter 5: Where Must CRM Be in the Future?

Now, where should CRM be as we move out into the future? And how should CRM relate to the ongoing digital revolution?

Chapter 6: If You Don’t Have CRM Today, You’re Sunk

For our final chapter, let’s talk about why CRM is so vital today—and why it is that, if you don’t have it, you’re not going to make it.

In this series of blogs on the role of CRM in 2020, we’ve discussed the role of the customer experience, and the battle between the “suite” approach, and the best-of-breed approach. Now we come to the specifics of the CRM application itself.

At Pipeliner CRM, we evolved something called the Product Philosophy Wheel, which describes our approach, and which I believe describes the future in technology:

 

In describing a CRM, we’re focusing on two parts of this wheel, processes, and technology (because we are describing CRM, the third part of the wheel—people—will be not addressed in this article).

Here I’ll quote renowned management consultant and author Peter Drucker:

“Efficiency is doing things right, while effectiveness is doing the right thing.”

First, let’s talk about why we at Pipeliner feel that our system is the most effective CRM for 2020.

Effectiveness and Efficiency

For an analogy, let’s go back 100 years, and say we’re out in the woods and want to build a cabin. To do so, we need to cut down a number of trees for lumber.

One tool for the job, and the most traditional one, would, of course, be an ax. That would be an effective tool. But even a little way into the 20th century, we find one that would be far more efficient—a chainsaw. Both tools would do the same job, but in the end, the ax isn’t the exact right tool. The chainsaw will save considerable time and effort over the ax.

Like the chainsaw in our example, our tool is, first, the only really effective one for sales, and second, the most efficient one. Certainly, there may be many other CRM applications that could be effective in some ways—but which would really be the most efficient? That would be remarkably easy to use and would rapidly onboard for salespeople and sales managers?

Technology

Part of the reason for Pipeliner’s efficiency is the care we have taken with the technology behind it. For many years we developed on the Adobe Air platform because it was the only platform at the time which allowed us to take our approach of Instant Dynamic Visualization. Back then, web technology did not possess libraries and components which would allow us to execute and implement features we felt were necessary, so salespeople could be both effective and efficient. It took us more than 4 years, when we finally had a web technology equal to Adobe Air, to make the full transition to the Cloud. We now make use of the very latest technology, such as the AngularJS web application framework.

Cybernetic Principles

The methodology we have applied all the way through our development is cybernetics, the “science of implication” which originated at MIT. In development, we examine each possible user group—the salesperson, the sales manager, and C-level executive—and work to make Pipeliner as simple as possible for each of them. The application of these principles resulted in Instant Dynamic Visualization.

Visual: Because a picture communicates so much faster than text, we evolved a completely visual CRM, which has resulted in the fastest adoption and most enthusiastic reviews of any CRM on the market.

Dynamic: But it wasn’t enough just to make it visual—it also had to be dynamic, because the world, especially the business world, is constantly changing, as is the data within it. CRM has to be able to totally keep up and change also, as CRM is the principal tool used in dealing with customers.

Instant: The “instant” part is about time, as there needs to be little to no latency when it comes to a CRM. Users need to have the latest data, in visual form, right now.

Setup and Onboarding

Setup must happen rapidly, too, as nobody has time for complex setup and weeks or months of onboarding. For that reason, we’ve also heavily invested in the back end to make it smooth for everyone. Our unique administration interface is one of our core differentiators and reduces the time, cost and learning of CRM in the enterprise space. We’ve even made it so that no full-time CRM admin is required; any person with computer skills can learn to be an admin.

Only a few years back, the importing of data into a new CRM, and cleaning of that data was problematic. Today technology makes that easy, as well. On top of that, you can now connect to your favorite applications through API, and flow that data back and forth. It’s a totally different game.

Training

One facet that has not changed over the years is that users must be trained. The faster and easier they can be brought on board, the more they will actually use the CRM—which, after all, is the whole point. We have made learning CRM incredibly easy, with most users able to come up to speed in a matter of hours, instead of days or weeks.

We do realize that in some respects, the training never ends because we’re constantly upgrading the product. For that reason, we have a bullhorn icon at the front of the product that will tell you what is new. Through our written and video materials, we also increase general understanding of the overall product so that new features and functionality are almost expected—they make sense. This makes learning even easier.

When it is required, our topnotch technical support is there to teach perhaps the 2 percent of functionality that might have not been communicated in the training.

Focus

Many CRM developers today are trying to concentrate on as many different features as possible, trying to capture all imaginable bells and whistles, industries and markets
instead of remaining focused on what they might do best.

As an example of focus, let’s examine legendary automotive manufacturer Porsche. One of the best car engines on the road is one they have been working on and improving for years: the Porsche 3.5 liter engine. That is a true example of focus. On the more modern side, we’ll see in the next few years who will win the focus on electric and hybrid automobiles.

In our case, we have focused on the most important aspects of CRM to make them as cost-effective and useful as possible for salespeople. Our CRM, while used for sales management, has been developed mainly for sales reps. If you provide a real benefit to salespeople, management will get what they want—the data for excellent reporting. Therefore we have the most flexible and easy-to-use report engine in our industry.

Besides the examples we’ve already given, we’ve made it possible, because our development on our backend, to reduce administrative time to almost zero. Compare this to other CRM systems that require one or more full-time administrators.

Our focus is not to be the “end all” CRM for all industries. We have focused on B2B sales. The only real customization required is to use our templates for your particular business and to adapt it to your individual sales process—all of which can be done in almost no time.

Processes

The revolution we are embracing deals with the future of automation. It deals with the slickness of putting processes in place and automating as much as possible—processes for sales, marketing, C-level executives, accounting, and all the rest. Human beings don’t operate 24/7, are not free from failure, and take sick and vacation time off. Technology is none of those things, so the more we can automate, the further ahead we’ll be. But we’ve reached the point that humans cannot live without technology any longer.

Our new version, due out this March, will bring all of this focus to a brand-new level. Stay tuned!

The world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.
― Norbert Wiener, The Human Use Of Human Beings: Cybernetics And Society

In researching my new ebook Achieving the Impossible, Lessons from the Apollo Space Program I of course ran across much information about the automation of many sectors of society. At the time of the Apollo space program—the 1960s and the 1970s—research was occurring at MIT and elsewhere into the blooming science of cybernetics.

Cybernetics originated with American mathematician and philosopher Norbert Wiener. In 1948 he defined cybernetics as “the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine.” Cybernetic pioneer W. Ross Ashby also referred to cybernetics as the “science of simplification.” Today cybernetics have had a profound impact on software, including our own CRM software.

Human Action at the Core

One impact of cybernetics, in modern software application, comes down to algorithms that pull information from a broad system, or from a general data source such as the internet. But it all comes back to humans interacting with a computer. The human acts, the computer gives information back, the human takes further action.

We saw in the moon landing the perfect example of human-computer interaction. During the descent to the moon, a computer error message occurred which, left alone, could have actually resulted in a mission abort. Between the flight and ground crews, they were able to override the error message and land safely on the moon.

If in the future we eliminate the human factor—as has been suggested by some scientific authorities—then everything would come back to only algorithms. But algorithms were created for specific scenarios, and aren’t actually alive, so cannot possibly be a perfect match for the real world in every instance.

On top of that, humans themselves have become more and more complex, and cannot possibly be addressed by algorithms only. As an example, today we have many more intercultural relationships than ever before—which merge varying aspects of 2 different cultures. The child of one of these relationships absorbs characteristics of both cultures into his or her life.

Complexity has certainly found its way into sales, too. Today’s sales landscape is far more complex than that of even 20 years ago. For that reason, we are directly applying cybernetics to Pipeliner CRM to simplify this complex sales landscape for salespeople and sales managers.

Cybernetics smoothly assists the human-computer interaction and also assists users to simplify data and use it.

Data Interpretation and Use

A common complaint about traditional CRM software, in the past, has been that data input was complex or difficult. Today, however, this issue has been solved, especially by CRM solutions such as Pipeliner.

A much more pertinent issue is what kind of insight the user is gaining from CRM data. This obviously has to do with how the user is interpreting the data—but it also has to do with how intuitive CRM is, and how the data is presented for use.

In the human-computer relationship, it is always the human in charge. Likewise, when it comes to a salesperson or sales manager and sales automation (such as CRM), it is always the salesperson or sales manager that is in charge. Automation assists in the analysis of data, but it must always be a human that draws the conclusions from that analysis. For that reason, at Pipeliner, we always place the human in charge.

In a similar manner, the sales manager requires data from salespeople, from the team, from the territory—but again the conclusion comes from the sales manager, and not from CRM. CRM can give the sales manager some insight—that’s why we call it insight—but the final decision will always be up to the manager.

The data in Pipeliner CRM is totally transparent—the sales manager sees the exact same data as the sales rep. The only difference is that the sales manager is able to view all the sales reps’ data, while a sales rep can only view data for that rep, not any of the others.

If a salesperson is well trained, the salesperson will interpret the data just as well as the sales manager. While the salesperson is being trained, the sales manager uses CRM data to mentor the sales rep, and instruct him or her on interpreting the data correctly.

We’re Addressing People

We can see that people are essential to both sides of the sales equation. In the end, the winning human-automation combination is aimed at marketing, selling to and—most importantly—helping people.

And there are a lot of them out there! According to the Population Reference Bureau, every single day Earth’s population expands by a net growth of 250,000 people. That’s basically the population of a small city coming into the world every day.

Where is this growth happening? In some parts of the world, it is happening dramatically, and in other parts, the population is actually declining. For example, Northern Africa currently stands at 229 million. In the next 13 years, that figure is expected to balloon out to 293 million. 30 years beyond that, the population is expected to reach 400 million. Parts of Europe, on the other hand, are declining.

What does this mean for our current world view? Every day, approximately 5,000 – 8,000 people are trying to travel by boat from Africa to Europe. This number, too, will increase. Is Europe ready for this kind of immigration? These people are from a drastically different culture than Europe and are and have often had much less access to education, if at all. This is the real challenge for Europe.

But every single one of these 250,000 people coming into the world every day, at some point, will buy something. They will be somebody’s customer. Today people expect to be treated as individuals, to have their particular needs and wants addressed. For that reason automation, today, has been tailored to keep careful track of buyer profiles.

So from both sides, it’s the humans that matter. As Ellyn Shook, Chief Leadership & Human Resources Officer, Accenture, has said: “Humans are at the heart of the digital revolution.”

Pipeliner CRM software is the perfect automated assistant for sales.  Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.