In the late 1970s, the computer services division of the Sun Oil Company (today Sunoco) pioneered a service now considered indispensable by virtually every company in the world. Sun and 20 other Philadelphia-area companies entered an agreement to act as backups for each other’s data systems. To create the needed capacity, the group developed a designated disaster recovery backup center. But when member companies were slow to pay their shares of the expenses, Sun Oil took over the backup operation and began selling computer services. In 1983, Sun Oil spun off the computer division and SunGard was born.

Since then, with the help of a few acquisitions, SunGard has grown steadily. It’s now one of the world’s leading software and technology services companies, with nearly $3 billion in annual revenues. SunGard now provides processing solutions for the financial services industry, K–12 education, and public sector organizations. It serves 16,000 customers in more than 70 ­countries. As a business-to-business service provider, that requires a substantial sales force.

When Russell Fradin took over as the CEO of SunGard, business was good. But the company faced some issues of concern. For starters, the internet increasingly provided SunGard clients and potential clients with the information they needed to solve their own problems. For both its private and public sector businesses, compliance with government regulations was also increasing. And increasing globalization made it more and more challenging for SunGard’s sales reps to meet client needs. SunGard was not alone in facing these issues. But that just added to the pressure—any company finding effective ways to meet these challenges would gain considerable strategic advantage.

SunGard also faced plenty of internal issues. The company sold multiple product lines, and Fradin felt that the SunGard sales force wasn’t achieving its potential in terms of selling the optimal mix of products. The company’s thousands of sales reps spent most of their time and effort selling licensed software rather than developing broader solutions to customer problems. Moreover, with multiple divisions and product lines and a fragmented go-to-market approach, SunGard often had multiple sales reps pursuing the same clients, sapping productivity and even driving some customers away.

Based on these assessments, Fradin asked himself, “How can SunGard make its sales force—one of the company’s biggest and most important investments—perform more effectively?” SunGard had decent systems in place for recruiting, hiring, and training its salespeople. And SunGard’s sales executives did a reasonable job of making incremental changes. But Fradin felt that the company needed to do more in order to improve its growth and performance. If more drastic changes weren’t made, the mounting challenges would likely limit future sales and profits. To Fradin’s thinking, SunGard needed a complete sales force transformation.

According to a report by global sales consulting firm ZA Associates, companies that move sales force effectiveness from good to excellent by virtue of a sales force transformation can increase profitable growth by as much as 20 percent. But that kind of transformation would require a major effort, many months to plan and execute, and even longer to take hold. It would demand nothing less than a total commitment from everyone in the organization—those at the lowest rung on the corporate ladder up to senior management and executives. It would also require that everyone have a clear vision of the benefits, both for themselves and for the organization as a whole. Disruptions from implementing such a sweeping change would likely mean losing good people and clients. It might also result in a short-term dip in performance before the benefits began to kick in.

All challenges considered, Fradin hired Jim Neve and Ken Powell to head up SunGard’s global sales efforts. The two-person team had worked on other successful large-scale sales force transformations and planned to carry out the same process at SunGard. “We needed to maximize our channels, sell the broadest set of solutions possible, and go to market in a coordinated manner,” said Powell. “We needed to build a sustainable growth engine.”

Neve and Powell branded the sales force transformation initiative as “Selling the SunGard Way.” More than just a fancy title, “Selling the SunGard Way” was a philosophy defined by specific goals and characteristics. First and foremost, the transformation would shift the basic sales approach from selling based on meeting customer needs to selling based on insights. SunGard reps needed to thoroughly understand the client buying decision process, anticipate needs before even customers themselves were aware of them, and tailor the client relationship to meet shifting concerns. Focusing on product functionality and price just wouldn’t cut it anymore. And sales interactions would need to draw from technology and services across all SunGard business units, not just within specific divisions or product lines. In order to achieve these skills, SunGard’s sales personnel would need greater knowledge and expertise of the full line of company products as well as the nature of each client’s business.

After thoroughly surveying the needs of SunGard sales associates, Neve and Powell drafted a detailed transformation plan. Sales reps needed better training, detailed competitive analyses, and more effective sales campaigns. They needed better data, fewer administrative tasks, and a simplified interface for the company’s Salesforce CRM sales management tool. To achieve such goals, Neve and Powell set out to overhaul SunGard’s core sales functions, including recruiting, training, managing, and compensating sales force personnel.

This transformation would take time and effort, and it would cost millions. But by the time the plan was revealed, there was support throughout the company. “The whole organization gravitated toward change,” said Powell. “[Everyone] knew it had to happen.” To help cover costs, the company shifted budgets, reallocating funds from ineffective programs to the transformation project.

On the recruiting front, SunGard adopted a new talent-assessment tool that defined ideal job profiles and evaluated skills and performance patterns of potential hires. The company also hired a team of sales development managers, charged with increasing the productivity of first-year sales reps. It was their job to make sure that new sales reps received all the training and exposure necessary to understand the company’s structure, strategic plans, products, and sales tools. That relieved front-line sales managers of these tasks, letting them focus more on selling. Sales development manager compensation hinged on the performance of first-year sales reps.

For existing sales personnel, SunGard revised procedures, metrics, training, and tools to make them consistent across the organization. It also made major revisions to its Salesforce CRM and sales management tool with an eye toward providing salespeople with all the information they needed for every aspect of the sales process. The important tool now provided easy and immediate access to content such as case studies, customer information, and market data. Additional tools were made available to guide people through the necessary steps of effectively closing a sale.

But to improve effectiveness for both new and existing sales personnel, SunGard needed to make even more changes in how it measured and tracked performance. For example, prior to the transformation, the company tracked incentives and commissions manually, and they were not readily accessible by relevant stakeholders. Under the new scheme, metrics such as individual goals and forecasts, as well as how often sales were made or lost, became part of an automated system, accessible by sales reps and managers via mobile interface at any time. They could even run “what-if” scenarios to determine potential earnings of different situations. This capability motivated sales reps by increasing accountability and promoting a competitive spirit.

As the new sales structure and tools took root, it wasn’t long before they began to bear fruit. “There was a tremendous product suite that had yet to capture its full market share,” says Todd Albright, who joined SunGard as senior vice president of sales for the Americas after the transformation was under way. That market share will soon be achieved. “There were tremendous assets locked up at SunGard,” Neve summarizes. “We put a road map in place to unlock those assets, translating them into new sales and revenue growth.”

With its billion-dollar sales plan now in place, SunGard is on target. As one example, consider the productivity improvements for first-year reps. Prior to the transformation, about 75 percent of new reps booked their first sale before the end of their first year at an average of about $400,000. Through the new policies, that sales productivity has doubled, adding an incremental $30 to $40 million to annual sales.

If boosting sales force effectiveness was easy, every company would achieve optimal sales force productivity. SunGard was willing to pay the price. In the first year following the implementation of the transformation, as expected, SunGard revenues decreased over the previous year—down by about 16 percent. However, profits rose by nearly 35 percent, thanks in part to reduced costs from more efficient operations. By the end of the second year, revenues were back on the rise. Fradin was notably pleased. “Clients are responding positively to these initiatives, knowing that our offerings help their businesses be more competitive. We [are] particularly pleased with our sales momentum and our organic revenue growth.”

Importantly, SunGard’s sales force is now much more coordinated and collaborative. It’s better trained and equipped to sell based on insights. Its products and services are bundled across product lines rather than within lines. And reps are developing partnerships with customers, assisting them in streamlining operations, accelerating growth, and complying with regulations. By transforming its sales force to “Selling the SunGard Way,” SunGard is on a path to sustainable, organic growth for years to come.