In 2021, our Gartner experts helped attendees address their most critical challenges. Our four tracks kickstarted conversations around priorities and initiatives so that attendees could tackle what was most important to them. Take a look at what was covered in 2021 and check back for 2022 agenda updates!
This track focused on how sales leaders could best to position their sales organizations for future success; from adjusting to macro trends to go-to-market models and commercial execution.
This track explored sales enablement in a virtual selling era. Sessions focused on new and adaptive virtual selling and digital buying strategies, as well as how leaders could enable operational growth.
Sessions in this track highlighted how sales operations could drive digital execution through improved sales analytics insights, and enhanced collaboration across all commercial functions.
This track covered the powerful innovations commercial convergence drives, including new approaches to commercial alignment, dynamic customer engagement and technologies that supports revenue operations.
This exclusive program allowed Chief Sales Officers and Heads of Sales to explore new strategies, share innovative ideas, and grow their community of peers.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT
Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP, Advisory, Gartner
B2B buyers’ increasing use of digital means suppliers must rethink how they sell. But how exactly? The answer lies in the very different way humans engage with digital information. Ironically, that difference not only makes it harder for suppliers to sell, but for buyers to buy, at least with confidence. And therein lies a huge opportunity for the best suppliers to sell very differently.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Michele Buckley, VP Analyst, Gartner
B2B buyers require sellers to deliver value across both human and digital channels. The rise in digital interaction requires sellers, processes, and technology to not only adapt but to do so in a manner providing customers a seamless experience. This session provides a strategic roadmap for CSOs to lead into that digital future by leveraging AI, hyperautomation and advanced analytics.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
John Quaglietta, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
This session provides commercial leaders a roadmap for establishing a customer success function to drive retention, expansion and advocacy. Sales leaders will learn four keys for building a successful customer success team from the ground up.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 02:00 PM EDT
Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP, Advisory, Gartner
Alice Walmesley, Director, Advisory, Gartner
This interactive, facilitated discussion connects CSOs with their peers to explore the ever-changing B2B marketplace. Gartner experts and audience members will have the opportunity to share experiences and discuss topics on buying behavior, the impact of digital buying, the drivers of buying confidence, and more.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Dave Egloff, VP Analyst, Gartner
Sales strategies are at risk when sellers are left to resolve competing priorities on their own. That risk is especially great today as overburdened sellers receive mixed messages regarding the best means to achieve commercial success. In this session, Gartner analyst Dave Egloff provides senior sales leaders a framework for rationalizing priorities and aligning key performance drivers in order to (re)focus attention.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Elizabeth Beard, Director Analyst, Gartner
Maria Boulden, VP, Executive Partner, Gartner
Gartner advisor Elizabeth Beard is joined by Executive Partner Maria Boulden to review practical steps commercial leaders can take to create more diverse, equitable, inclusive sales teams that achieve stronger top line growth. As part of the discussion, Elizabeth and Maria will provide real-world examples from companies successfully improving diversity, equity and inclusion in their organizations.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Alice Walmesley, Director, Advisory, Gartner
Gartner research shows that suppliers who enable their buyers via a rich digital experience with the right level of human mediation will boost advocacy and improve share of wallet. In this session, Gartner Analyst Alice Walmsley walks through a best-in-class example of this approach recently deployed at JLL.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:15 PM EDT
Dave Egloff, VP Analyst, Gartner
Craig Riley, Director Analyst, Gartner
This interactive, facilitated discussion connects CSOs with their peers to explore how each are adapting field sellers to virtual selling. Gartner experts and audience members will have the opportunity to share experiences and discuss topics like revisiting territory design, sales force sizing and adapting sales coverage to shifting buyer dynamics.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP, Advisory, Gartner
Maria Boulden, VP, Executive Partner, Gartner
Join us for a conversation between Brent Adamson and Gartner's “CSO Whisperer” Maria Boulden, as she lays out the top strategic and tactical initiatives every head of sales should prioritize for the second half of 2021
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Daniel Hawkyard, Principal, Advisory, Gartner
93% of B2B purchases take place in the context of organizational change, creating broad uncertainty for buyers that harms commercial outcomes. Sales organizations must increase their buyers’ confidence by prescribing a clear roadmap to execute their change journey. This session will explore how to reduce buyer indecision and create a purchase experience that supports the customer’s change journey.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 02:25 PM - 02:40 PM EDT
Carla Harris, Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Senior Client Advisor, Morgan Stanley
Cristina Gomez, Managing Vice President, Gartner
Join us for this 15 minute exclusive fireside chat with our day two keynote speaker, Carla Harris, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley. We'll get to delve a little deeper into what Sales Leaders should focus on if they want to be Intentional Leaders, as well as getting insight into how Carla herself has coped through these recent turbulent times.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Henri Richard, VP, Executive Partner, Gartner
Tom Cosgrove, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
This interactive session will help CSOs and other sales strategy leaders structure, enhance, and address tradeoffs in their channel strategy to effectively compete and grow in a post-pandemic market. Experts will answer your questions on topics like channel partner program design and incentives, partner experience and enablement, and omnichannel alignment.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Suppliers often struggle to articulate a coherent view of supplier value across sales, marketing, product and customer success, as each of these functions pursues related yet different near-term objectives. This session will provide commercial leaders a value-based framework for ensuring consistent cross-silo execution in both strategic vision and tactical execution.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Tom Cosgrove, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
B2B buying has evolved dramatically, but many channel partners’ sales strategies have failed to keep pace. Gartner analyst Tom Cosgrove provides sales leaders a practical framework for increasing alignment between channel partners’ go-to-market models and current customer buying behavior. Areas addressed include virtual selling, buying journey mapping, data sharing and improving digital buying experiences.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Brian C Cain, Director, Advisory, Gartner
In bracing for the lasting impacts of the pandemic, many sales leaders are reevaluating the skills their sellers will need to be successful. Regardless of the timing or degree to which we return to in-person selling, one thing is for certain: customer preferences for how they engage with suppliers will have permanently shifted. This session will analyze how organizations can refine seller skills for a post-pandemic world.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:30 PM EDT
Danielle McKinley, Director, Advisory, Gartner
Daniel Hawkyard, Principal, Advisory, Gartner
This interactive, facilitated discussion connects sales leaders with their peers to explore how each considers manager enablement, given the degrees of change occurring in sales. Gartner experts and audience members will have the opportunity to share experiences and discuss topics like manager burden, coaching virtual sellers and enabling a continuous learning mindset.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Shayne Jackson, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Ineffective sales communication leads sellers to spend more time looking for information, reducing productivity. Sales enablement leaders who actively manage sales communication develop more agile teams that are better able to respond to an ever-changing selling environment.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Doug Bushee, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
This session will introduce CSOs to the revenue enablement framework that focuses on how progressive sales organizations are moving beyond enabling sellers to align and integrate stand-alone enablement found in sales, marketing and customer success functions to drive revenue growth.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:30 PM EDT
Shayne Jackson, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Debbie Bender, Director Analyst, Gartner
This interactive, facilitated discussion connects sales enablement leaders with their peers to explore how they are showing the value of their sales enablement programs. Gartner experts and audience members will have the opportunity to share experiences and discuss topics like selecting the right metrics, analyzing the gathered data and communicating the value to the right stakeholders.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Brian C Cain, Director, Advisory, Gartner
Whether your company expects to be back to fully in-person sales soon or is solidifying a virtual engagement model, one thing is for certain: we’re living in an era of disruption. Join us as we analyze two companies whose approach to agile messaging and focus on helping customers through disruption has enabled them to stay relevant and engaged throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and stand at the ready for whatever’s next.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:30 PM EDT
Doug Bushee, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Melissa Hilbert, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
CSOs and sales leaders should be thinking about preparing their organizations to succeed in a sustained, virtual selling environment. During this session, attendees will join peers to share their challenges and successes in managing digital fatigue. Attendees to this session should come prepared to share their experiences, top practices, and concerns regarding digital fatigue.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Debbie Bender, Director Analyst, Gartner
Sales organizations invest money and resources to build sales playbooks; for good reason, research shows playbooks are critical for improving seller effectiveness. However, many sales leaders find that their sales playbooks fail to drive the desired impact. In this session, learn the common challenges in driving playbook adoption and impact and explore strategies to activate playbooks for improving sales effectiveness.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Elizabeth Beard, Director Analyst, Gartner
Shayne Jackson, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Effective virtual employee onboarding requires more thoughtful planning than simply shifting on-site onboarding to a virtual medium. Join this session to learn how to apply Gartner's sales onboarding best practices to successfully transition to virtual onboarding while improving new hire learning and engagement.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Nate McCullough, Director, Advisory, Gartner
CSOs are struggling to equip sellers to effectively engage B2B customers who increasingly prefer digital channels. As a result of the pandemic, buyers and sellers will continue to engage through virtual channels. CSOs and sales enablement leaders should attend this session to learn how Express Scripts created compelling customized microsites that increased the quality of seller interactions with buyers throughout their buying journey and improved their conversion rates.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Melissa Hilbert, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Despite deploying technologies to help sellers work more effectively, organizations find that sellers continue to be overwhelmed and dissatisfied with the tools. Attend this session to understand how digital adoption solutions deliver an improved experience and learn about use cases that can benefit from this solution as well as the metrics to track success.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Shayne Jackson, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Doug Bushee, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
This interactive session will help sales enablement leaders plan and execute sales meetings that inform, inspire and connect sellers. Experts will answer your questions on topics like driving long-term behavior changes, incorporating social and fun activities that unite the team and producing an impactful event.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Dave Egloff, VP Analyst, Gartner
Sales operations were born from a mix of reactive and supportive resources. Unfortunately, too many sales operations teams have failed to evolve and are still stuck in this transactional cycle. This session will show how sales operations can shift from a tactical, defensive approach to one of strategy and offense and become an asset to the organization and enterprise.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Alastair Woolcock, VP Analyst, Gartner
Buyers' engagement preferences are changing with more customers looking for digital-first or even seller-free engagements. Is your organization ready to succeed in this new environment? This session will show how to deploy a successful RevOps model to consolidate marketing, sales development, field sales and customer experience to create a singular go-to-market (GTM) model that meets buyers' needs and drives end-to-end revenue growth.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Adnan Zijadic, Sr Principal Analyst, Gartner
Many organizations think that benefiting from sales analytics requires deep technical skills. It is time to break these misconceptions and learn how to get the most out of sales analytics without hiring a data scientist. In this session, we will explore how organizations can leverage out-of-the-box solutions that don't require involvement from internal resources and how sales leaders can get the most out of their existing business tools.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Danielle McKinley, Director, Advisory, Gartner
Sales leaders recognize analytics’ potential to transform the function and are making a range of investments in technology and talent to produce insights from data. Unfortunately, low data literacy is compromising these investments. This session will show how Rockwell Automation ran a change management initiative to resolve data misinterpretations and reinforce a data-driven sales culture.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Steve Rietberg, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Steve Herz, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
The importance of collaboration among commercial functions is quickly growing as leaders look to break down internal silos. This interactive session helps sales operations leaders improve their data and analytics governance. Experts will answer your questions on topics like building a business case, establishing standards, improving data quality and managing a sales analytics roadmap.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Craig Riley, Director Analyst, Gartner
Many commercial leaders are struggling to use sales analytics effectively leading to suboptimal decisions. In this session, we will dive into survey data examining the state of analytics today to better understand how teams are using analytics, where analytics are struggling to add value and what changes leaders need to make to realize sales analytics' potential.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Dave Egloff, VP Analyst, Gartner
Steve Herz, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
This interactive session will help CSOs and other leaders design effective sales compensation plans. Experts will answer your questions on topics like pay mix, compensation metrics, upside potential and more.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Tad Travis, VP Analyst, Gartner
The pandemic has exposed cracks in every company's sales processes. Knowing that sales process discipline must be optimized to increase the chances of closing new deals, sales leaders should adopt AI-based guided selling capabilities. This session will explore the top forms of guided selling technology, examine successful use cases, and explore what's next for the technology.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Michele Buckley, VP Analyst, Gartner
Artificial intelligence has the potential to positively change the world of selling. This session will explore real-world examples of AI and ML technology that are already impacting revenue results today. What techniques and technologies were used? How did it help sellers sell? Gain inspiration and ideas from these case studies, who have experienced success advancing towards a new future of sales fueled by AI.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Devin Poole, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Commercial organizations must evolve their engagement model by converting customer data into actionable insights and pursuing a proactive communication approach focused on driving next-best-action. Doing so will help sales leaders to create a more personalized customer journey. This session will help leaders to learn the framework for Dynamic Customer Engagement and improve the effectiveness of customer engagement.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Shiela Rahimian, Director, Advisory, Gartner
Greg Hessong, Sr Director, Advisory, Gartner
This interactive session will help sales leaders implement more efficient outbound prospecting strategies in 2021 to drive growth. Experts will answer your questions on topics like using data to find targets that are more likely to engage, enabling teams with relevant buyer insights, and building engagement plays with high value offers.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Chris Moody, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Executing effective meetings with prospects and customers always has been the most essential element to advancing buyers in the sales process. Buyers have become exponentially harder to reach over time and 2020 made it even more difficult. A proven solution to the problem is to create a high value offer (HVO). HVOs are meetings or experiences that are so compelling, buyers consider it worth their time to engage. This session provides an actionable breakdown on how to design and execute HVOs across the entire buying process.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Craig Rosenberg, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
Robert Lesser, Director, Advisory, Gartner
This interactive session helps sales leaders understand the current sales technology landscape and identify sales tech that may help optimize their sales team. Experts will answer questions about specific technologies, adoption and roll-out best practices, plus what's next in sales tech.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Michael Maziarka, VP Analyst, Gartner
John Quaglietta, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
This interactive session will help CSOs build and refine a customer success function. Experts will answer your questions on topics like functional scoping, role coordination and more.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Robert Blaisdell, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Customer account growth is made possible via effective upsell and cross-sell programs. Unfortunately, too many programs suffer from generic, ill-defined sales motions wasting effort and resources. In this presentation, we explore six distinct strategies that can help prioritize potential revenue growth, align sales execution with objectives, and allocate the best talent and resources to the right opportunities.
Monday, May 17, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Dan Gottlieb, Director Analyst, Gartner
Pipeline creation is a top priority for CSOs in 2021. Sales Development organizations are teams purpose-built to target, engage, and qualify prospects and for years, have been the most consistently effective strategy for pipeline generation. To engage hard-to-reach prospects, it's imperative to build the sales development organization on modern, proven best practices. This presentation will deliver actionable insights to design a new team or optimize your current one.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 11:45 AM - 12:15 PM EDT
Craig Rosenberg, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
Account Based strategy is the coordination of valuable, relevant experiences delivered across all functions that impact the customer to drive engagement and conversion at a targeted set of accounts. This type of go-to-market is not a fad, it is actually one of the most effective strategies organizations are employing. And with data and technology innovation, it keeps getting better.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Penny Gillespie, VP Analyst, Gartner
By 2022, digital channels will capture the largest share of b2b transactions. To capitalize on this massive revenue opportunity, organizations need to radically rethink their sales strategy. This starts by thinking outside of sales endeavors within its existing span of control and instead, applying the learnings of digital commerce and design the channel through the eyes of the customer.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 01:15 PM - 01:45 PM EDT
Robert Blaisdell, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner
Brian C Cain, Director, Advisory, Gartner
This interactive session will help CSOs and other leaders optimize their investments in key accounts. Experts will answer your questions on topics like the structure and staffing of key account programs, key account selection, and more.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 02:45 PM - 03:15 PM EDT
Craig Rosenberg, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
Product-led growth strategy has been shown to create scalable, consistent revenue for organizations that are able to adopt it. For everyone else, this strategy has major implications for how we sell in a digital environment, including developing an end-to-end process that is obsessed with the buyer. Learn about product-led growth and the six key take-aways that will be transformative for every CSO.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:00 PM EDT
Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP, Advisory, Gartner
SMART Technologies has done the unthinkable: They've completely dismantled sales, marketing, service, and customer success and reconfigured their commercial organization around customer buying jobs. The result is a go-to-market model far more aligned to customer buying behavior and far more effective at internal coordination. Join Jeff Lowe and Jenna Pipchuk of SMART to hear their story.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 / 03:30 PM - 04:15 PM EDT
Dan Gottlieb, Director Analyst, Gartner
Craig Rosenberg, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner
This interactive discussion connects sales leaders with their peers to understand the various demand generation strategies and discuss what’s working and not working in driving pipeline. With the power of peer and analyst collaboration, audience members will be able to leave this session with new strategic and tactical ideas to either launch new demand generation strategies or optimize current ones.