By Debu Chatterjee, CEO and co-Founder

Many of you are familiar with the parable of the blind men and the elephant.

"Six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.

A king explains to them: All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned."

For marketing and sales, the elephant in the room is understanding what drives success - what drives conversion of leads to opportunities and opportunities to wins. Is it the relationship with the customer; the sales person, the product or something completely different? Marketing and sales are like the blind men focusing on only one aspect of the elephant. Yes, each of the factors is important, but they are only part of the story. What sales and marketing needs is a scoring solution that can take all the relevant factors and integrate them into one score. The ideal scoring model:

• Is highly accurate
• Provides the top reasons for each score
• Defines a cutoff score that automatically adjusts for profit maximization
• Has a mechanism to add new factors without programing changes

Today, experienced sales managers are like the 'king' in the parable by knowing how to integrate what they are hearing from their sales people. DxContinuum's lead and opportunity scoring solutions provide objective insights that complement the judgment of sales people and managers. This enables them to get a clear view of the quality of leads and opportunities in their funnel so that they can make various prioritization decisions.

DxContinuum's extensible solutions use relevant factors, either from data inside the company or outside, and provides the reasons for each score to make them actionable. This capability is key in building confidence in the organization about the logic behind the prediction and for the organization to realize the full benefit of using predictive analytics.

Try the DxContinuum DxC SalesSuite today.