Alinean, Inc., the leading expert on IT Business Value Selling solutions, today announced a significant upgrade to their industry-standard toolset, with the launch of EnterpriseROI(TM) Sales Tool Platform version 4.0. The new features will extend the ability of B2B and IT vendors to effectively prove the business value and return on investment (ROI) of their solutions amid an increasingly competitive marketplace.

The new EnterpriseROI(TM) brings the power of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to Alinean's comprehensive suite of sales tools. Centralized, scalable & flexible, this turnkey solution enables the industry's first programming-free, web-based sales tools. Using the EnterpriseROI software and platform, sales and marketing teams are enabled to drive effective value-based sales programs to align with each stage of the customer buying process.

By leveraging customer-specific benchmarks, company comparisons, benefit assessments and cost analyses, they can easily create highly-effective tools to help understand goals and opportunities, empower peer benchmarking, drive intelligent solution recommendations, calculate total cost of ownership (TCO) advantages and provide customer-specific, quantifiable proof of ROI to frugal executive prospects.

According to the latest selling and marketing effectiveness research, Business Value Selling is an important driver to sales success, especially as the economy continues to tighten. A recent SiriusDecisions Sales Readiness survey polled more than 120 sales and marketing executives in organizations ranging in size from $10 million to more than $2 billion, in vertical markets that included technology, financial services, healthcare, information services and others. When asked to rank five prominent inhibitors to a salesperson's ability to make plan, findings show that the inability to communicate value messages to customers and prospects finished at the top of the list.

According to Joe Galvin, Vice President, Service Director of SiriusDecisions, "Today's most effective reps understand that establishing relationship credibility, and providing genuine value to a prospect or customer throughout the buying cycle, is the difference between ultimately closing the deal or losing it. When engaged by potential buyers, the successful sales representative significantly enhances the ability to influence the final decision by being prepared to fill knowledge gaps with the specific, customized information they need -- and can't get from other sources."

Implementing the powerful EnterpriseROI business value toolset and practices represents an opportunity for vendors to collaborate and form a consultative partnership with their customers -- and significantly upgrade the quality of interactions. As an example, prospects can initially engage through easy-to-use, self-service tools from a company website. Sales teams can then leverage more in-depth consultative selling tools to accelerate and support the customer throughout the buying process.

"Today over 90% of corporate buyers and executives expect B2B vendors to help them assess opportunities and quantify the value of proposed solutions," said Tom Pisello, CEO and founder of Alinean. "With Alinean's EnterpriseROI tools, the process of opportunity discovery, value quantification, ROI and TCO analysis is automated, helping vendors better connect with frugal buyers and win executive approval."