Can the Apple Watch help you sell?

In the past few weeks, CRM vendors have been very quick to show their latest Watch demos.

Following the Apple Watch launch this morning, Robert Desisto, vice president and research analyst at Gartner, questions "whether there is any real use compelling use cases for salespeople.

"I could see alerts being important but the idea of a salesperson reading email, checking the status of sales opportunities, or trying to navigate some report in a screen a little bigger than a quarter seems like a stretch," he says.

"Especially when the Apple Watch still requires you to have an iPhone, and if salespeople have an iPhone on their possession, why wouldn't they just use it?" Desisto asks.

Desisto adds that "many of us didn't see the possible uses of the iPhone and iPad when they were initially launched, but there were at least obvious use cases (email, contacts, maps, texting, browsing the web, etc) for mobile salespeople.

"I am not saying consumers in general will not buy the Apple Watch," he says. "For example, I am intrigued on how the Apple Watch will support my iPhone running app, Runkeeper.

"It would be nice just to check my wrist to see distance travelled and mile splits, and possibly measure my heart rate (I know a Garmin could do this now).

Desisto says there will be consumer apps that will emerge that are 'cool and drive adoption'.

"I just don't see salespeople rushing to buy Apple Watches to help them sell to customers," he says.

"If you can think of compelling use cases for salespeople or sales managers, I would love to hear them.