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Brainshark Acquires Rekener: What It Means and What’s Next

Dec 04th, 2019

Today, we are announcing that Brainshark has acquired Rekener, Inc., a sales scorecard and data analytics platform that helps customers dramatically improve their sales team performance.

This acquisition launches an exciting new era of data-driven sales readiness and enablement. These combined platforms will enable client-facing organizations to show the direct correlation between content, training, assessment and coaching to competencies, sales activity, pipeline and increased revenue. The combination of Brainshark and Rekener raises the game for what companies can (and should) expect from a sales readiness solution.

Below, Rekener founder and CEO Alex Laats and I address some initial questions to shed more light on what this means for Brainshark, Rekener, the readiness market, and – most importantly – our customers.  

Why has Brainshark acquired Rekener?

GF: Brainshark recognized the power of the Rekener data analytics platform and sales scorecards to enhance our current reports, analytics and Team Dashboards, which our customers use to generate a 360-degree view into their team’s sales readiness levels. Rekener’s scorecards will allow users to tie Brainshark’s readiness insights more closely with CRM analytics, which enriches the information, gives deeper insights to sales managers, enables better coaching and ultimately drives higher sales attainment.

What does Rekener do?

AL: Rekener enables sales managers to be data-driven sales coaches in weekly one-on-one meetings. Sales managers use our sales scorecards application to diagnose what’s working and what isn’t and motivate sales reps to improve. Powered by Rekener’s data analytics platform, sales scorecards automatically generate a holistic view of sales rep performance with data from Salesforce CRM, HubSpot CRM and other sources. We package all the power and analytical insight of leading business intelligence platforms into an easy-to-use application that sales managers love.

What does this acquisition mean for the greater sales readiness and enablement market?

GF: Over the past couple years, it’s been exciting to be a part of the strong growth of the sales enablement market with Brainshark leading many of the high points. Sales enablement professionals are always looking for an extra edge or insight to make the sales process more efficient. They have deployed multiple platforms to help improve their readiness and performance. The Rekener platform enables sales professionals to synthesize the data from these disparate systems to make better data-driven decisions. The combination of Brainshark’s market-leading readiness platform and Rekener’s data platform and scorecards creates the first platform that will enable our customers to show the direct correlation of readiness to revenue.

What does this mean for current Rekener customers?

AL: Rekener will continue to develop, sell and support our sales scorecards application. Our unwavering goal is to enable our customers improve sales performance using data. We’ve always placed a high premium on helping our customers be successful, and that will never change. What will change with the acquisition is the scope of what we can do to help our customers improve sales performance. For example, with Brainshark’s sales training and coaching solution, we’ll be able to offer a powerful feedback loop that creates a real connection between improved readiness and increased revenue.

What does this mean for Brainshark customers?

GF: Brainshark’s new analytics will be powered by the Rekener platform and will include all our current capabilities plus the ability to create custom reports, metrics and dashboards. The acquisition enables us to collect data from various sources and correlate it to a rep’s knowledge and skills. With the addition of Rekener’s easy-to-use platform, customers can give sales managers an effective way to identify weak spots and address them with Brainshark sales learning and coaching programs.

How long before customers will start seeing the integrated platform?

GF: We have already begun working on the integration of the two platforms. We are targeting an initial offering in early 2020 with immediate benefits for our joint customers with subsequent updates based on customer feedback and input.

For more information on Brainshark’s acquisition of Rekener, read our press release.

Check out this 1-minute video to see Brainshark’s comprehensive solution for sales enablement and readiness in action. To learn more about Rekener’s sales scorecards, view our solutions page or book a meeting with our team.