On-demand sales incentive management vendor Xactly is spreading its wings today and laying claim to the wider "sales performance" market which, citing market research from Ventana, the company claims is far bigger than salesforce automation alone. Does that mean Xactly aspires to become bigger than Salesforce.com, I asked Xactly's CEO Chris Cabrera in a briefing call on Friday. Cabrera and his colleagues laughed off the suggestion, not least because Salesforce.com is itself a marquee customer for Xactly, as well as a major partner. Nevertheless this is a company that, like Salesforce.com before it, is punching above its weight for its size and has targeted a market that looks set to expand dramatically over the next few years.
"It is the high end of the mid-market that really is adopting on-demand because of the economics," Cabrera told me. The appeal of Xactly, he added, is that it gives them the information and tools to get the best out of their salesforce. "They will absolutely sell more stuff, and they'll sell more of the right stuff."
Today's announcements extend Xactly's offerings in several directions:
Xactly has set out a roadmap for further product introductions over the next year or two, extending its reach into areas such as territory management, quotas and pricing (as in the diagram above). All of this is founded on a recognition that its sales information data store is a valuable resource that it can exploit to deliver added value to customers. "Leveraging the power of the data piece is the foundation of our go-forward strategy," said Cabrera.