A Data Driven Approach to Sales

Had not heard of the specifics of this, interesting, especially regards the link to specific data, customers paying based on usage.

A Look into Microsoft’s Data-Driven Approach to Improving Sales
Sanaz Namdar, Ryan Fuller in the HBR: 

Companies are beginning to utilize their employees’ behavioral data — generally known as people analytics — to better understand and improve their sales operations, with strong results. Microsoft, where we work, is no exception, and B2B sales is one of the areas where we are seeing the most value. Our findings, and the ways we came to them, can be useful to other sales organizations looking to make internal changes of this type or optimize how their salespeople relate to customers.

In mid-2017, we executed a major redesign of our sales organization in response to what our customers needed from us, and to better align our selling approach with cloud services sales model (in this model, customers pay based on usage versus a traditional fixed licensing deal). We knew we needed a fast and effective transition to the new model without dropping the ball with our customers, but the undertaking was daunting and the stakes were high: With a complex sales organization of 20,000-plus salespeople covering large enterprises to small business customer segments, and spanning 100 countries, it was important to see how these changes impacted our customer collaboration and partnerships. We needed to get answers to some of our biggest questions, including:... "