The ATD Excellence in Practice Award for sales enablement is presented to a practice that fosters and enables world-class sales competencies and standards that guide and empower sales leaders and sales training professionals to develop the next generation of sales people.  

Challenge 

In 2010, SAP SE, based in Walldorf, Germany, experienced rapid growth, and its new target audience went beyond IT professionals to include any business leader who might benefit from its solutions portfolio. Reaching that audience required the company to hire and train thousands of new sales representatives.

At the time, the company didn’t have a sales onboarding program and the lack of proper training was having an adverse effect on new hire performance. Many new hires hadn’t closed any deals during their first year and had achieved less than 50 percent of quota. These factors led to lost revenue opportunities and attrition twice the industry average. 

Solution 

SAP SE developed Year One Success (Y1S), a global sales enablement onboarding program designed to help experienced new hires become more productive in less time. Y1S follows a 90-day road map composed of four main components: role-specific content, manager-driven accreditation, and an ongoing buddy program to help participants acclimate quickly to their new roles.

In addition, a five-day new hire boot camp is held regionally twice a quarter in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Heidelberg, Philadelphia, Moscow, Johannesburg, Singapore, Shanghai, and Tokyo. In larger regions such as North America and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), boot camps are held monthly.

Results 

To date, the Y1S program has served more than 7,100 participants across 65 countries, representing nearly 10 percent of its total workforce. The program has measurably improved all new hire key performance indicators annually since 2011. In 2014, program participants increased the number of opportunities created (per rep) by 37 percent, the number of closed sales opportunities by 163 percent, and the average total revenue generated by 178 percent.