Walk around the halls at SAVO these days, and you can really feel the momentum and the energy. We’re coming off our best quarter ever – and our best year ever – in the company’s ten-year history. Despite what was a pretty challenging year in the macro-economic world, bookings for SAVO grew 40% in Q4 2009 compared to Q4 2008, and our 2009 subscriptions increased 30% over the year before. But while the numbers are great for business, we never forget that we’re in the business of enabling real people. This is why we’re extremely excited to bring the power of SAVO to nearly a dozen new customers in the coming weeks, including CVS Caremark, First Data, Spherion, Verisign, and Wellmark.
Gary Mitchiner, VP of Marketing for CVS Caremark, put it this way:
“The new SAVO Sales Enablement software will be a critical tool for sales and marketing to achieve our goals of presenting a current, consistent, and accurate message in the marketplace. We expect a sales productivity boost in 2010 and beyond as salespeople find it easier to access and prepare for critical selling conversations.”
If you’d like to read the full press release announcing our results, please click here.
Why this uptick? Well, one reason is that the Sales Enablement space is growing. More and more companies are identifying a need for Sales Enablement – we keep hearing again and again from our customers that the old ways of preparing their customer-facing people no longer work, nor are those ways efficient. We’re also seeing an increase in coverage by key analysts who likewise are witnessing companies impacting their revenue pictures through Sales Enablement. Joe Galvin, VP and Research Director at SiriusDecisions, has been covering Sales Enablement for several years now and recently had this to say:
“Transferring knowledge from all sources to sales and helping a rep share that knowledge with customers and prospects is the mission of Sales Enablement. The shift from information overload to knowledge access is a top priority for enablement teams focused on improving sales productivity. Increasingly, organizations are investing in Sales Enablement technologies to address this year’s most pivotal challenge. SAVO continues to lead some of the largest sales organizations in solving these critical objectives.”
While we’re pleased with our ’09 performance, anyone walking our halls every day will tell you that we’re not resting on our laurels. This year is going to be an exciting year for SAVO and for the Sales Enablement space, and we are thrilled to continue to bring to market the most innovative technology, strategies, and people to help our customers achieve their very real revenue goals. The only way to continue the momentum for our customers (and inside our own hallways) is to continue to innovate. We have known this for years, and we love that challenge.
John, Congratulations to you and the entire Savo team on your outstanding results for 2009 and thank you for being the leader in driving true sales enablement in a time when fresh ideas, innovation and execution are needed more than ever in the sales and marketing space.
We always encourage our clients to ask “sounds good, but does it work?” – well we can tell you first hand that Savo sounds good on paper but more importantly it works in the real world delivering quick and lasting results. The Savo “before and after” is one of best i’ve ever seen in my sales and marketing career. In a time when companies need cost reductions and revenue gains – Savo delivers on both! We’re excited to see the next level of innovation from Savo in 2010…we know we can count on Savo to deliver innovation that works in the real world, for real people. Thank you for your passion and commitment!