More than half of all sales department IT projects will not deliver a return on investment (ROI), according to analyst Gartner.

Research reveals that initiatives for company sales departments often run into trouble with culture and process clashes, with only 45 per cent showing a measurable return.

John Dorling, sales director at Network Appliance, believes that the woeful ROI on sales projects is largely down to poor uptake. "Salesmen are the easiest people to convince with a good presentation, but too few organisations sell them the new system," he said.

"All too often they see sales admin systems being foisted onto them rather than developed by them, so view them as an extra headache that requires additional work that gives them no benefit. At worst they are seen as a form of management control," he added.

The report - Top 10 Management Failing in Sales Technology Rollouts - cites the lack of project goals and metrics as the biggest problem, although inadequate commitment from end users can also contribute to failure rates.

Achieving early buy-in from sales teams can be difficult, but is worth the effort as Dorling found out with a recent rollout of its sales support system.

"Our project team involved all the jobs of people who would have to use the system - sales representatives, as well as managers, support staff, admin and accounting as well as system designers. As soon as the sales guys could see the benefit in terms of making their lives easier through additional resources, they bought into the project."

Other factors which contribute to problems with projects include poorly defined sales processes, lack of commitment from senior executives and channel partners, and a failure to concentrate on the needs of the sales team.

By 2005, 80 per cent of failed sales technology roll outs will be caused by people, processes and politics, rather than IT implementations.