in a shift in mindset takes time. Regardless of how powerful or impactful a solution claims to be, buyer readiness to adopt requires trust. And the most effective way to garner trust is to deliver clear, tangible value. The world isn’t suffering from a lack of insanely smart, overly educated individuals trying to change the world with big data analysis and machine learning. Countless new startups equipped with billions of dollars of investment are focused on the opportunity. But who cares how algorithmically amazing a software solution is or how much analytical horsepower a platform has if the value it provides to customers is nebulous? Innovation without impact is nothing more than the next bright shiny penny. The platforms we believe are best positioned to gain traction over the next few years are those focused on harnessing the power of data and applying it pragmatically to influence specific, well- defined business outcomes. Part two of our thought map series examines three sub-segments comprising vendors leveraging data-centric approaches to help go-to-market teams answer some of the most fundamental and impactful questions they face today. How can we sell more effectively in an increasingly product-led era as the buying process is evolving? How can we arm our sellers with context about this prospect to increase their chances of conversion? How likely are we to close this account and where do we think we’ll finish for the quarter and year? High Velocity Sales Assist The rise and proliferation of product-led growth – and more broadly the increasing pervasiveness of self-serve models – has enabled individual business users across functional groups to get up and running with productivity applications, workflow optimization solutions and broader enterprise platforms with the swipe of a credit card. Classic top-down enterprise software buying and selling is not going anywhere for a while, but we’ve clearly entered an era where almost every category of software has one (or many) vendors attempting to disrupt the landscape with a bottoms-up, friction-light GTM approach supporting the ability to purchase and deploy a solution with little or no direct human involvement. Nobody enjoys the feeling of “being sold to, especially in an in-your-face, pop-up-ad kind of manner, but this has evolved in a much more nuanced way over the last few years. Now that prospective buyers can – and very often do – ingest massive amounts of information comparing product capabilities, pricing and value proposition before ever engaging with a given business directly, the role of the seller in the buying process needs to change. - 8 -