Sales-i, a real-time sales acceleration service for front line sales people today announced that more than 90% of its sales are achieved without anyone having to leave the office. Online demonstrations and web-conferencing facilities are the new sales tools that underpin the majority of these SaaS sales.

Speaking about this impact on green IT, Sales-i's co-founder Paul Black commented: "Selling using a SaaS model is very different to selling on-premise. We work on lower margins and higher win rates so the sales cycle must be simpler and shorter to accommodate that. The customer expects an online experience and an online service and this expectation is set from the outset at the initial sales engagement."

Sales-i communicates with its customers by phone and online. The customer participates in a demonstration run over the web using a web conferencing service such as Webex or Microsoft LiveMeeting, and from that the customer commits to the sales intelligence service. "It's as simple as that," says Black. "Our motto is See it, Get it, and we have been surprised by just how few face to face meetings we have had to engage in since we launched the service over six months ago.

"The SaaS selling model lends itself well to helping minimise our corporate and individual carbon footprint. We are told that every sales professional can save 1.87 tonnes of carbon dioxide simply by moving their sales presentation online and most software-as-a-service solutions are now being sold through online meetings so the overall saving is hugely significant. With training and support also online in this software sales model, then I guess we can conclude that SaaS can boast some seriously good green credentials."