Sales Force Automation
Presented by:
Dheeraj 18075
K.Kusuma 18084
Sai Shankar 18101
Subbu 18112
Venu 18116
WHAT IS SFA?
It is the application of computerized technologies to
support salespeople and sales management in the
achievement of their work-related objectives.
KEY TECHNOLOGICAL ELEMENTS
• Hardware: Desktop, laptop and handheld devices
and contact or call centre telephony technology.
• Software: Comprises both ‘point’ solutions that are
designed to assist in a single area of selling or sales
management, and integrated solutions that offer a
range of functionality.
THE SFA ECOSYSTEM
SFA Solutions Providers
• SFA specialists: They compete against enterprise and
mid-market CRM suites that include SFA modules.
• Enterprise suite vendors: Offer a full range of IT
solutions to support business, including SCM, ERP
and CRM.
Classification of SFA vendors
Hardware and Infrastructure Vendors
• Necessary to sustain increased number of users of
SFA applications.
• Portable devices for field sales representatives.
• Should be synchronized with the central database.
• SFA applications need to integrate with
communication channels.
Service Providers
• Provide re-engineer selling processes, manage
projects, train salespeople, consult on organizational
structure etc.
• They contribute to SFA project costs and to the
probability of success.
SFA Software Functionality:
Account management
It offers sales reps and managers a complete view of customer relationship
including contacts, contact history, completed transactions, current orders,
shipments, enquiries, service history, opportunities and quotations.
Activity management
It keeps sales representatives and managers aware of all activities, whether
complete or pending, related to an account, contact or opportunity, by establishing
to-do lists, setting priorities, monitoring progress and programming alerts.
SFA Software Functionality:
Contact management
It includes tools for building, sharing and updating contact lists, making
appointments, time setting, and task, event and contact tracking. Contact list data
includes names, phone numbers etc.
Contract management
It enables to create, track, progress, accelerate, monitor and control
contracts with customers
SFA Software Functionality:
Document management
Companies generate and use many documents as they sell to customers for
example brochures, product specifications, price lists, competitive comparisons and
templates for preparing quotations.
Event management software
It enables to plan, implement, control and evaluate events such as conferences,
seminars, trade shows, exhibitions and webinars, whether run solo or jointly with
customers or other partners.
SFA Software Functionality:
Incentive management
It is an issue for sales managers who use commissions to lift, direct, and reward
sales representatives’ efforts. In many companies commissions are calculated using
standalone spreadsheets
Lead management
It allows companies to create, assign and track sales leads. Leads either expire or
convert into qualified opportunities.
SFA Software Functionality:
Opportunity management
It enables to create an opportunity record in the database and monitor progress
against a predefined selling methodology. Sales people follow the steps as if
following a checklist, ensuring that all opportunities are handled consistently.
Order management
It allows representatives to convert quotations and estimates into correctly
priced orders once a customer has agreed to buy.
SFA Software Functionality:
Pipeline management
Product encyclopedias
It is a searchable electronic product catalogue that generally contains product
names, stock numbers, images and specifications. These can be stored on
representatives’ computers and/or made available to customers online .
Product Configuration
It enables sales people, or customers themselves, automatically to design and
price customized products, services or solutions.
SFA Software Functionality:
Product visualization
Proposal generation
Quotation management
Sales forecasting
Territory management
Workflow engineering
SFA Adoption
Generally a company’s determination to adopt SFA
follows a two-step process.
•First senior management decides to invest in SFA.
•Secondly sales representatives and their managers
decide to use SFA. Unless those benefits are delivered
SFA may be abandoned.
Benefits From SFA
• Competitive Advantage
Sales force automation offers companies a competitive
advantage by allowing management to track trends in the
market, along with the sales of the competitors.
• Saving Time
Sales force automation can save a great deal of time. The
ability to manage client lists, track leads, communicate easily
with customers gives a sales team tools that might otherwise be
too difficult or time-intensive to research and implement
manually.
•Improved Teamwork
Members of a sales team can use sales force automation to
communicate and work together more effectively. For one thing,
sales force automation provides a means of sharing data remotely.
•Better Training
Sales force automation gives companies a strong training tool for
new members of the sales team. The sales force automation ensures
that new employees will be using the same tools and methods as
established members of the team.
•Evaluation
Sales force automation also gives sales supervisors valuable tools for
monitoring the efforts and sales of a sales team and individual
members of the team. SFA system allows the businesses to serve
their customers with expertise and diligence.
How SFA changes sales
performance
• There have been no. of assessments of the effects of SFA
on sales performance.
• Does the use of SFA really contribute to higher sales
performance?
• SFA associates with improvements in sales
representatives’ selling skills, knowledge and
performance.
• Sales representatives’ use of SFA accounted for a small,
yet significant, portion(7%) of their sales performance.
• Not all research indicates positive outcomes
from the implementation of SFA.
• SFA will have more impact on sales
performance when a no. of conditions are
met.
• 1. Salespeople find that SFA is easy to use
• 2. Salespeople find the technology useful
because it fits their roles well
• 3. Availability of appropriate-to-task SFA
training
• 4. Users have a positive attitude towards
innovation and technology
• 5. Senior management support for SFA
• It is SFA users who decide what is easy to use
CONCLUSION
• Sales force automation is a competitive
necessity which involves the application of
technology to support sales people and their
managers.
• Sales force automation leads to better
informed and more productive reps.
• Increases likelihood of closing a sale.
• Enhances customer relationships.
