SugarCRM has acquired sales-i, the revenue intelligence platform provider, for an undisclosed fee.
In doing so, the prominent CRM player pulls new capabilities that promise to enhance sales profitability and enable more intelligent account management.
After SugarCRM and sales-i first partnered in June last year, several customers will already have access to those capabilities.
These match "soft data" from SugarCRM - like: when did I last speak with this customer, and what did we talk about? - with "hard data" from sales-i, such as: what have we sold you, or what should we sell to you?
As Craig Charlton, CEO of SugarCRM, said when announcing the acquisition:
This combination delivers actionable, intelligent sales strategies that will improve revenue, maximize profitability, increase customer satisfaction, and produce more efficient salespeople.
To understand how the combination of soft and hard data will do this, first consider that sales-i pulls much of its "hard data" from the ERP system. Next, it applies machine learning to isolate associations between products based on previous sales patterns.
When a customer purchases a product, sales-i then calculates the probability of them ordering an associated offering.
With this knowledge, salespeople can make calculated decisions to pursue possible new revenue opportunities each time the business sells any single product.
As Paul Black, Founder and CEO of sales-i, summarized:
The partnership of sales-i and SugarCRM has enabled companies to gain unrivaled insights into their customer buying behavior.
"Together, we’ll expand our capabilities and accelerate development processes that will benefit customers and create a significant market impact."
Currently, joint customers can access all those real-time, "unrivaled" sales insights via SugarCRM dashboards, with alerts signaling the most promising opportunities.
sales-i also calculates a confidence score for each opportunity – indicating its accuracy - and its potential value. That enables cross-/upsell prioritization.
