Across business functions, competitive edge is being replaced by competitive efficiency. There are few, if any, unexploited market openings. Instead, winningbusinesses gain their advantage by taking smarter actions and predicting. Big data and analytics are the keys here, but so far almost no one is optimally leveraging these tools. Especially in sales, we pick up crumbs of insight here and there and timorously try a few things out, but mostly stick to the safetyof our gut reactions. What we've been lacking is an all-encompassing approach to data analytics. Data Driven: How Performance Analytics Delivers Extraordinary Sales Results is the first book to show how to make data an integrated part of the entire sales cycle. When we can do that, the breakthrough resultswill follow.\nSales used to run on hunches and intuitions, but those days are over. Author Jenny Dearborn was one of the pioneers of this revolution in the sales function, and she has worked at Hewlett Packard and SAP and collaborated with dozens of other firms including Microsoft and Salesforce.com to revitalize sales in eventhe tightest markets. These experiences, along with over 100 interviews with top global sales leaders, formed the foundation for Data Driven,which presents the fictional story of Pam Sharp. Pam is the new Chief Sales Officer at Trajectory Systems and readers will see themselves in hereffort to turn a flagging sales department into a driver of sustainable growth. Instead of taking a \"buffet\" approach, Pam generates organizationalbuy-in and builds data right into the structure of the company in a way that any enterprise-level sales leader can replicate.\nIn each chapter of Data Driven, Dearborn summarizes and provides insightful commentary on Pam's story, distilling the crucial lessons into how-to steps. The book culminates with the Prescriptive Action Model a four-step process for going from data collection to action and pushing sales into the future. Charisma and \"sales sense\" won't get businesses far in today's tech-driven markets. Successful sales managers are already transforming sales into a fluid system of in formed actions that translate into productivity. Data Driven will help leaders stay on the leading end of this fast-moving curve.