What is our primary use case?
Clari Revenue Platform's main use is for forecasting, asking the sales reps to submit weekly commit, forecast, upside and pipeline numbers. This is then rolled up to their managers who do the same based upon their team submissions. This then rolls up to directors and then up to the VP. This is used for all products in the business to give a picture to the board of how well the business is performing on a weekly and quarterly basis.
For renewals on Clari Revenue Platform, we have a quota for all the team which looks at the expected value of a potential contract based upon the current spend of the customer. We then apply an uplift and that calculates their quota based upon the customer satisfaction. The sales rep will then build the opportunity, build the quote, run through the different forecasting statuses, negotiate with the customer. This will allow the commercial operations team to analyze the performance of the rep, the movement of the opportunity through the negotiation phase and how accurate the submission of the forecast is by the rep versus the actual outcome of the opportunity. We can see how accurate the forecast submitted by the rep is.
The main use for Clari Revenue Platform is the waterfall feature within the analytics module. This is used to measure pipeline movement over a month or a quarter. This is used in QBR sessions with leadership to analyze the validity of the pipeline. Has the pipeline successfully moved through the stages or is it being kept a hold of by reps to avoid losing the potential of the opportunity in the future? It's also used to determine metrics such as length of time in pipeline and push counts to maximize the accuracy of the pipeline.
What is most valuable?
Clari Revenue Platform has several best features. For me personally, Pulse and Trends are very useful. One of the most common questions I get in Sales Ops is whether we are likely to hit the number for the quarter or next quarter based upon the pipeline that we currently have. With Pulse, you get an AI prediction based upon historical trends as to where the platform thinks you will finish for a particular period, such as the quarter. This allows me to provide more accurate results for leadership. Trends look at previous quarters, behavioral shifts, busier times, quieter times and gives you a recommendation to how much pipeline you need to hit a certain number, but also where it expects you to finish for a particular period as a pipeline as a whole. This shows how the pipeline is going to then progress into future periods.
In day-to-day work with Clari Revenue Platform, what I tend to emphasize to the sales managers is looking at opportunities with a close date in the period, so if we are looking at quarter pipeline, which are idle. I use the Flow analytics tool within Clari for this. Flow allows me to show the movement of opportunities whereby a stage movement, a forecast stage change, a value of the opportunity change, or even just next steps can be displayed. It allows me to point out to managers where opportunities are stalling so they can go back to their team, not just take their word for it, but actually show the team with evidence that an opportunity seems to be struggling. They can have a conversation with the rep and potentially either close the opportunity or have a meeting to discuss how they are going to progress it further. This has led to an improved win rate in my particular organization.
Clari Revenue Platform is a much more simple version of Salesforce. What we normally find in Sales Ops is because of the amount of fields and the amount of reports which can be created within Salesforce, it is very easy for a sales manager to get lost or not find what they need or even create reports with the incorrect information. What Clari does is it takes the fields that are used most regularly, puts them into the inspect, and allows the sales managers to create reports more easily, giving the information they need more efficiently. Less training is required and it is a more manageable platform. It has reduced the time needed by managers to find what they need. It has improved the completion of fields within Salesforce by the sales reps, which then gives better information. It has also improved the accuracy of forecasting rather than just using an Excel spreadsheet.
Win rates, which you can see in the analytics modules of Clari Revenue Platform, have increased from around 5% in certain regions up to more than 25%, which is a massive shift. I believe that has been caused by the use of Clari for field completion and forecasting, but also the analytics modules to check the validity of opportunities and to allow managers to catch stalled opportunities faster and rework them with their team.
What needs improvement?
Clari Revenue Platform could be improved by making the forecasting grid easier to manipulate but also more customizable. At the moment to manipulate the forecasting grid, you require someone with enterprise or advanced ops access in Clari Studio to make the changes, but also you need someone who has the confidence to manipulate the programming language to make those changes. In my company currently there are probably three to four people who feel comfortable doing that, myself included, which then puts more strain on those people if they are out of the business or on holiday or whatever it might be. The platform should be more customizable in terms of what managers want, but also easier to use on the backend system for creating and managing the forecasting grid.
More integration with third-party applications would be beneficial. We currently have Chorus running and also have it linked into Outlook. More integrations with other third parties would be valuable.
Clari Revenue Platform's main areas for improvement are how it integrates with our instance of Salesforce, the length of time it takes to add fields to the Clari integration user, but also how easy it is to manipulate and create forecasting grids.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Clari Revenue Platform for approximately two years. I was the person who onboarded Clari into Sage at the start of my role. I have then been managing the platform for the UK, AME, and AMR, APAC regions for approximately the last eighteen months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
For the most part, Clari Revenue Platform is stable. We do get outages mostly linked to Co-pilot. When we do get the outages, we are kept informed. There is a status page, there are frequent emails, and very rarely are issues taking place more than one hour.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Clari Revenue Platform is very scalable. We are currently expanding into different product lines within our business, and we have not had any issues. We are also using it on multiple instances of Salesforce, and it has been absolutely fine. You can give as much or as little access as you want. The main challenge is your Salesforce hierarchy. It is imperative that this is set up correctly and maintained. Without that, the forecasting what people can see in the inspect or in the analytics modules will not work. It is more about it working hand in hand with other platforms rather than itself being scalable. It is all dependent on your organization.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support for Clari Revenue Platform in my opinion is brilliant. I know a couple of the support team by first name and we speak regularly. They are quick to respond, they are quick to understand what the problem is and advise if it is a Salesforce issue or if it is actually a Clari problem, but also they explain things in a clear way so that you can get the support you need internally if they are not able to provide it. I would rate the customer support at eight to a ten regarding how I would rate it. This is very high. I am definitely a promoter of customer support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before Clari Revenue Platform, we relied fully on Salesforce. The reason for going with Clari was to simplify the Salesforce process because we had different countries using the same instance, but those people would use different fields. We wanted the platform which could be bespoke to different regions to simplify their day-to-day and to allow them to manage their pipeline whilst on the go.
What about the implementation team?
Clari Revenue Platform is deployed pretty much by myself. We have a number of licenses based upon the users we expect to enroll over the course of a period and we will purchase more licenses accordingly. Clari Revenue Platform is on cloud, it is not on-prem. It is on cloud fully as is our Salesforce instances and it is linked up to them.
What was our ROI?
I think you have seen a return on investment with Clari Revenue Platform. The team are hiring specific people to manage the platform rather than just relying on the sales operations, which they would not do if they were not seeing a return. Also, I am seeing a lot of strong usage and how usage has increased over the period of time that it has been around. The team in North America who were using Clari before the UKI team have seen a great return on investment, which is why it has expanded into the UKI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with Clari Revenue Platform's pricing, setup cost, and licensing was overall fine. However, I have been predominantly involved in the deployment of Clari rather than the pricing setup cost and licensing. That was decided by the GTM team in North America and the UKI. That was not something that I was overly privy to.
What other advice do I have?
I would say that as long as you have a strong use case in terms of your company having issues with managing pipeline, looking at close dates, idle opportunities and you have a poor win rate, Clari Revenue Platform will make a difference to your organization. What I will say is that it is more geared for an enterprise level than perhaps an SME. You need to make sure you get your ducks in a row in terms of stages for your pipeline, your forecast, your closed dates, but most importantly, your Salesforce hierarchy so management can see all of the opportunities which are relevant to them in their different teams. Clari is an excellent tool, but it requires a lot of homework before you onboard it.
Clari Revenue Platform is a good platform. It is solid, it is stable, it is reliable. It is very straightforward to use. The solutions engineers do a good job of getting you up and running. You have an account manager who looks after you post implementation. The customer support is very strong and it does achieve what it says it will achieve for you. I would rate this review overall at a seven.