BMC Software - Best New Sales Performance Management Solution

Company: BMC Software, Houston, TX
Company Description: BMC Software, Inc. is an American enterprise software company. BMC offers SaaS-based and on-premises software and services in areas including cloud computing, IT service management, automation, IT operations, and mainframe. BMC stock was originally traded on NASDAQ under the symbol BMCS and on the New York Stock Exchange with symbol BMC, but the company is now privately held.
Nomination Category: New Product & Service Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Performance Management Solution - New

Nomination Title: Waterfall Forecast Dashboard - Utilizing the Financial Waterfall Categories to Forecast Renewals

The Waterfall Forecasting Dashboard was created on February 2020 and has been used to service the sales and sales operations organizations within our company.

Business Problem:
Sales Forecasting Accuracy has been a continual problem with a renewals business that brings over $700M in revenue a year. Sales leaders had difficulty forecasting accurately as over 50% of quarterly revenue came in the last week of a fiscal quarter. Missing the forecast by 10% led to swings as large as $25M USD. Thus, we needed to identify a solution that could help us better manage our forecasts and help point sales leaders to where they need to be focusing their attention throughout the quarter.

Sales Management Challenges to accurate forecasts:
-Unable to visualize and identify performance for each financial waterfall lever: Backlog, Slips, Cancellations, Term Length Difference, On-Time, In-Year Pull Forwards, and Fiscal Year Pull Forwards.
-Chasing the largest deals without understanding the full trend or scale of problems within each geographic region or product line.
-Varying trust in Sales Opportunity Records.

Describe the features, functions, and benefits of the nominated product or service (up to 350 words):

We created a "waterfall forecasting dashboard" that highlights the financial plan target and aggregates all of the renewal opportunity records to their respective financial waterfall category:

-Ontime - Opportunity closing in the same fiscal quarter that it was expected to close.
-Backlog - Opportunity closing in a previous fiscal quarter is now closing in the current fiscal quarter.
-Cancellations - Opportunity that has cancelled
-In-Year Pull Forward - Opportunity from a future fiscal quarter within the current fiscal year is now closing in the current fiscal quarter.
-Fiscal Year Pull Forward - Opportunity from a future fiscal year is now closing in the current fiscal quarter.

Renewals are a fixed opportunity set, thus this tool allows leaders to identify and determine if they need to find a term length extension, find a fiscal year pull forward, or save a cancelling customer, in order for them to hit their financial plan targets. By breaking down each opportunity record in these waterfall categories, sales leaders are able to identify trends in each category and determine where they could leverage the other categories to grow and expand renewals revenue to forecast as accurate as possible.

Outline the market performance, critical reception, and customer satisfaction with the product or service to date. State monetary or unit sales figures to date, if possible, and how they compare to expectations or past performance. Provide links to laudatory product or service reviews. Include some customer testimonials, if applicable (up to 350 words):

Since the waterfall forecasting dashboard has been published to sales leaders, we've been 100% or greater to our renewals plan for each fiscal quarter. However, the main reason why this tool has been recognized by sales leaders throughout our renewals organization is not because of our renewals target attainment, but our increased forecast accuracy: our forecasting accuracy's margin of error from the beginning of a fiscal quarter to the end of the quarter was reduced from an average of about 14% to 2%. The waterfall forecasting dashboard shows real-time performance in each waterfall category which allows sales leaders to discern where to focus their resources, but also understand what is necessary to reach their financial targets and an achievable forecast.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

Renewals Forecasting Accuracy:

FY19 Q4 - 91%
FY20 Q1 - 99%
FY20 Q2 - 84%
FY20 Q3 - 73%

After the creation of the Waterfall ForecastDashboard

FY20 Q4 - 99%
FY21 Q1 - 102%
FY21 Q2 - 99%

Attached is the original proposal with a general visualization of the dashboard. Other views of the current dashboard can be made available if requested.