From Cold Call to Qualified Lead: A Practice-Based Case Study of Inside Sales, Channel-Partner Enablement and CRM Discipline in B2B EdTech SaaS

Purpose: Software vendors selling to educational institutions face long buying cycles, multi-person decision units and tight budgets. Few practitioner accounts examine how top-of-funnel selling processes are operationalised. This paper details the inside-sales routine of an Indian collaboration-technology firm. Design/methodology/approach: Descriptive single-case study based on participant observation during an industry placement (25 May – 31 August 2026), combining field logs, CRM dashboard extracts, and product documentation. Findings: The CRM logged 122 assigned leads (107 personally profiled), 1 ,131 calls, and 6 qualified leads (4.9% yield) handed to field/partner sales. Qualification required ~190 logged calls per lead. Key drivers identified: decision-maker data accuracy, multi-touch engagement, and partner enablement. The paper develops the Qualify–Enable–Hand-over (QEH) model. Practical implications: Recommends unified contact repositories, standardised webinar-to-training playbooks, and structured feedback loops.