Driving Global Sales Alignment and Performance at SAP Concur with Sandler

Introduction: A Complex Sales Landscape in Need of Clarity

SAP Concur, a leader in cloud-based travel and expense management, supports a broad array of customers from SMBs to global enterprises. With a large and diverse customer-facing organization—encompassing sales, pre-sales, customer success, and partner functions—the company faced a critical challenge: how to unify messaging, streamline processes, and elevate strategic selling capabilities across roles and regions. As the company continued to scale and evolve, SAP Concur needed more than just sales training—it needed a flexible, role-specific methodology that would instill consistency, drive performance, and empower strategic collaboration.

The Challenge: Fragmented Sales Approaches and Missed Opportunities

SAP Concur’s sales teams were operating with inconsistent language and disjointed processes:

• Lack of Alignment Across Roles: Customer-facing functions each spoke a different “sales language,” leading to fragmented messaging and lost momentum in team-selling scenarios.
• Low Executive Engagement: Teams, particularly in customer success, struggled to engage C-level stakeholders and pivot to strategic, outcome-driven conversations.
• Inefficient Sales Cycles: Without clear qualification and disqualification standards, teams wasted time on deals that lacked viability, especially in the enterprise space.
• Scalability Struggles: As the company expanded globally, sales enablement needed to reach different roles, markets, and levels of experience without losing impact.

The result: sales cycles were elongated, team collaboration was uneven, and coaching lacked a common framework.

The Solution: A Scalable, Role-Centric Sandler Deployment

SAP Concur chose to partner with Sandler after identifying internal teams that had already seen success using Sandler techniques informally. This grassroots effectiveness became the model to replicate at scale.

Key Elements of the Deployment:

1. Strategic Rollout by Function and Region

   Sandler training was rolled out across the business in structured waves based on function and need:

   • Leadership teams received foundational training and served as internal champions.
   • Sales teams were enabled with Sandler methodology to strengthen discovery, qualification, and deal advancement.
   • Pre-sales and solution advisors focused on aligning with sales and reinforcing consistency in team-selling.
   • Customer success, partner success, and market development teams were trained to elevate conversations, drive outcomes, and create strategic customer engagement.
   • SMB segments were enabled with similar training, adjusted for scale and specific customer dynamics.

2. Role-Specific Customization

   Sandler’s flexibility allowed for content to be tailored to each team’s needs:

   • Pre-sales and BDR’s focused on discovery and objection handling.
   • New business reps honed qualification and shortening deal cycles.
   • Client sales emphasized cross-selling and strategic expansion.
   • Customer success teams learned how to shift from service to strategic advisory.

3. Performance-Targeted Enablement (PTE)

   In smaller cohorts, SAP Concur piloted targeted enablement:

   • Used KPIs (e.g., sales cycle length, cross-sell ARR) to identify middle performers.
   • Delivered focused Sandler content to boost specific behaviors.
   • Tracked short-term improvements with precision.

4. Coaching Infrastructure

   Sandler’s flexibility allowed for content to be tailored to each team’s needs:

   • Managers were trained **before** individual contributors.
   • Reinforcement tools (e.g., deal review frameworks, Highspot toolkits) supported coaching and sustained use.
   • Sandler-trained ambassadors ensured **internal ownership and localization** of content.

The Impact: Strategic Consistency and Measurable Gains

SAP Concur realized both quantitative success and qualitative transformation across its teams:

Quantitative Results

• Sales Cycle Efficiency: Targeted cohorts saw a 30% reduction in average deal time.
• Performance Uplift: Improvements in deal velocity led to corresponding quota attainment gains.
• Cross-Sell Growth: Focused training increased cross-sell ARR among client sales teams.
  Five-Year Gains: Across SAP Concur’s teams:
  • 12.75% average annual increase in average deal size.
  • 9.75% average annual improvement in win rates.

Qualitative Transformation

• A common language and methodology now unites all customer-facing roles.
• Pre-sales, sales, and success teams collaborate more effectively, with clearly defined processes and expectations.
• Coaching is standardized, data-driven, and focused on advancing deals, not just reporting on them.
• Leaders now approach enablement strategically, aligning Sandler programs with key business initiatives.

Keys to Success and Advice for Others

“Sandler helped us go from ‘doing sales training’ to building a high-performing sales culture. It’s more than techniques—it’s about changing how teams think, speak, and act at every level.”

-Annemarie Vivolo, SAP Concur

Lessons for Other Organizations:

• Be Clear on What You Want to Change: Define the behaviors and KPIs that matter most before launching.
• Start with Leadership: Train leaders first to create alignment and drive reinforcement.
• Customize for Roles and Regions: Ensure relevancy by adapting content for different functions.
• Don’t Go It Alone: Treat your Sandler team as partners. Transparency fuels better strategy.