March 20, 2009, Newsletter Issue #96: Business Intelligence And Sales Force Management (SFM) - Advantages

Tip of the Week

In order for any software system to gain acceptance in an organization, it must first demonstrate the advantages a system will deliver and how it will enhance organizational performance and, eventually, performance management.

Haag et al, claim that sales force automation systems can improve the productivity of sales personnel. Business intelligence vendors agree and together they give examples advantages that can impact the sales force and lead to better sales performance. From Haag:

Rather than write-out sales orders, reports, activity reports, and/or call sheets, sales people can fill-in prepared e-forms. This saves time.Rather than printing out reports and taking them to the sales manager, sales people can use the company intranet to transmit the information. This saves time.Rather than waiting for paper based product inventory data, sales prospect lists, and sales support information, they will have access to the information when they need it. This could be useful in the field when answering prospects’ questions and objections.From Cognos:

Generation of sales leads from techniques like data query and data mining also saves time.Having automated sales reports that will actually be used to make better decisions and exploit emerging opportunities, enhance the sense of teamwork in the sales force.Knowing that the efforts of everyone in the sales organization are usable and accessible to the entire enterprise makes learning new tools profitable and thus worthwhile.Haag and Cognos both assert that sales force automation systems can also affect sales and corporate management. Here are some examples:

Call sheets and other sales performance management reports are presented in easy to understand tables, charts, or graphs. Activity reports, information requests, orders booked, and other sales information will be sent to the sales manager more frequentlyThe sales manager or executive can develop query databases and structure analysis from his browser-based dashboard and can configure the system via scorecard techniques.

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