CRM Chapter 4 Sales Force Automation

Contact Management v. Sales Force Automation  Contact Management  Control over your account and contact information (ACT!)  Primarily data driven, not process driven  Limited integration capability  Limited customization with most software  A new report must be generation for each situation  No workflow  Limited analytic capabilities  Salespeople often prefer Contact Management software as they don’t necessarily like the accountability of CRM

Sales Force Automation (SFA)  Sales Management generally prefers the integration and control of SFA software  Most vendors target management in developing software  Software enables oversight with web-based integration and real-time data  Better territory management which helps with geographically-spread clients  Strong forecasting and accuracy assuming salesperson accuracy in entering data  Strong analytics which makes performance measurement and goal setting simpler  Reporting is more customizable

CRM/SFA Challenges  Early use of SFA showed low rates of consistent use of tools by salespeople, which means wasted investment in CRM programs  Sales people must be included in and a part of development of CRM solutions within an organization

Renewed emphasis on Salesperson  In response to studies in , software vendors realized the need to focus on salesperson needs in new software development  Oracle, Saleslogix led the way  MS Outlook is used tremendously for various selling functions  Need for better mobile integration

Salesperson (cont.)  Salespeople also need better sales proposal tools integrated with software  Focus on user interface not IT  Personalized screens and interfaces  Easy to use analytics that help salespeople forecast and schedule

Software vendors  Much of the focus on CRM since 2002 has been with software that manages CRM processes  Sales processes  Customer services processes  Workflows  (CHAPTER 3)