How Ping Identity unified two sales orgs into one in six months

Overview

Ping Identity provides identity and access management solutions - helping organizations manage secure authentication, authorization, and single sign-on across their applications. In 2023, Ping Identity's parent company acquired ForgeRock, a fellow IAM company that had been running Backstory for three years. When the two sales teams merged in early 2024, the challenge was unifying two organizations that couldn't have been more different in how they sold.

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Before Backstory

• Two merged sales orgs with two completely different selling motions - no unified process
• Ping Identity legacy team had no standard qualification methodology in the CRM
• Individual managers and sellers running their own approaches, disconnected from deal stages
• No data to objectively evaluate which process drove better outcomes
• Complex enterprise buying groups with no structured way to map or track stakeholders

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Choosing the go-forward methodology with data, not opinion

Letting performance data settle the question of which process to standardize on

Historical performance data showed two things that made the decision straightforward: high-performing sellers at ForgeRock used Backstory at a rate 50% higher than low performers. And every single one of ForgeRock's President's Club AEs had high Backstory utilization, with deal sizes that skewed significantly larger.

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AFTER BACKSTORY

• Performance data showed 50% higher Backstory usage among top performers vs. low performers
• 100% of President's Club AEs had high Backstory utilization and larger average deal sizes
• Go-forward methodology decision made on evidence - ForgeRock's MEDDPICC process adopted
• Historical ForgeRock opportunity data fully preserved through the transition

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MEDDPICC rollout and pipeline hygiene

Getting a merged org onto one process - and keeping the pipeline honest

Backstory handled the technical side of the rollout. The team built Opportunity Scorecards into regular deal review cadences and set clear criteria for when scorecards were required. The pipeline hygiene benefit showed up immediately - incomplete scorecards became visible and impossible to ignore in pipeline reviews.

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AFTER BACKSTORY

• MEDDPICC Opportunity Scorecards required on all new logo deals, $100K+ deals, and SaaS deployments
• Scorecards embedded in twice-quarterly pipeline reviews - hygiene issues surfaced early
• Pipeline visibility improved - leaders have accurate, current data without chasing sellers
• Forecasting tool enriched with Backstory scorecard data for more precise revenue planning

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Relationship Maps and complex buying groups

Bringing order to enterprise deals with multiple stakeholders and competing priorities

Backstory's Relationship Maps gave sellers a way to build and maintain a visual map of every stakeholder in a deal, show the relationships between them, and export that directly into presentations and account plans. The adoption didn't need to be mandated - sellers who used Relationship Maps for the first time immediately understood the value.

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AFTER BACKSTORY

• Stakeholder buying groups mapped visually for every major enterprise deal
• Key personas tracked through every deal stage - gaps in coverage surfaced proactively
• Maps exportable directly into presentations and account plans
• Voluntary adoption - sellers use Relationship Maps without being required to

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What Ping Identity achieved

Merging two sales teams is described, accurately, as a monstrous task. Doing it in six months - with full methodology alignment, consistent pipeline data, and a team that actually uses the process - is the outcome Ping Identity delivered. Legacy Ping Identity sellers who had never used a structured qualification tool are now using it by choice.

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