INSIGHT: Can Apple Watch sell to salespeople?

In the past few weeks, CRM vendors have been very quick to show their latest Watch demos.

“Although the demos look cool, I question if there is any real compelling use cases for salespeople,” observes Robert Desisto, research analyst, Gartner, speaking following the Apple Watch this morning.

“I could see alerts being important but the idea of a salesperson reading email, checking the status of sales opportunities, or trying to navigate some report in a screen a little bigger than a quarter seems like a stretch.”

Especially when the Apple Watch still requires you to have an iPhone, adds Desisto, because surely, “if salespeople have an iPhone on their possession why wouldn’t they just use it.”

“I know many of us didn’t see the possible uses of the iPhone and iPad when they were initially launched but there were at least obvious use cases (email, contacts, maps, texting, browsing the web, etc) for mobile salespeople,” Desisto adds.

“I am not saying consumers in general will not buy the Apple Watch. For example, I am intrigued on how the Apple Watch will support my iPhone running app, Runkeeper.

“It would be nice just to check my wrist to see distance traveled and mile splits, and possibly measure my heart rate (I know a Garmin could do this now).”

According to Desisto, there will also will be consumer apps that will emerge that are “cool and drive” adoption.

“I just don’t see salespeople rushing to buy Apple Watches to help them sell to customers.”