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SAVO Honors IBM and Staples for Driving Sales Enablement Innovation

IBM

IBM knew that its sellers spent substantial time managing internal processes, such as developing presentations and finding brand-compliant proposals, which took time away from selling. Since first piloting a successful SAVO solution in 2006 with 150 employees, IBM now has more than 40,000 SAVO users across the globe and the solution has dramatically improved the efficiency of its sales presentation and proposal generation processes.

"IBM is pleased to accept the SAVO Pioneer Award. We believe that enabling our global sales force with high quality materials not only helps drive efficiency and sales productivity, but more importantly, allows us to deliver greater value to our clients. We welcome this recognition from SAVO," said Steve Rosenberg, Manager of Request Management, Data Mart, Proposal Reuse, and Services Solutions at IBM.

Staples Advantage

Staples Advantage, the business-to-business division of Staples, Inc., first rolled out its SAVO solution to a select group of employees in January 2008. Shortly thereafter the company acquired Corporate Express and relied on SAVO to ramp sellers and effectively manage the communication and change process. By June 2009, Staples extended SAVO's solution into various divisions and expanded globally in early 2010. The solution now serves as a platform to connect sales and marketing when rolling out new initiatives to the field to drive consistent messaging and branding.

"IBM and Staples have pushed sales enablement to evolve from a revenue-generating tool used by individual salespeople, to a revenue management platform directing enterprise growth," said Mark O'Connell, CEO of SAVO. "Both of these organizations have established best-in-class sales enablement strategies and as collaborative partners have challenged SAVO to stay on top of our game. We're honored to recognize them as true pioneers and look forward to strengthening our relationship in the future."

Sales enablement bridges the gap between the C-suite's strategic revenue initiatives and their execution in the field. Effectively managing the implementation of these initiatives requires sales enablement technology and functional alignment to ensure success.

About SAVO

Founded in 1999, SAVO is a leading provider of cloud-based sales enablement technology and consulting solutions. SAVO's on-demand sales enablement platform maximizes the sales team's ability to communicate value and differentiation in clear, consistent and compelling ways. Combining proven sales and marketing best practices with award-winning technology, SAVO addresses all aspects of the sales enablement challenge - spanning people, process, insight and technology. For more information, visit www.savogroup.com

For SAVO
Amy Peterson, 617-986-5026
savo@famapr.com