Effect of sales force automation on sales

Background

Sales Force Automation can be described as an application of information technology to support sales people in their selling and administrative activities. It utilises computerised hardware, software and telecommunications technology to capture, access, analyse and exchange high quality information in order to improve sales.

In the past, big companies out-competed smaller companies. The game was simple back then, provide a quality product, do some brand marketing, give samples to your sales force and let them go door to door selling their hearts out. But that’s history. Today, the fast companies outcompete the slow companies and leaders who have historically dominated the direct-sale industry are playing catch-up now.

Today, companies need to make decisions where the customers are and not in the offices like it were the case in the past. For that reason, sales force teams have to be equipped with devices that run fully connected custom applications designed to manage customer, market and product information and perform activities that give customers a personalised service.

Why companies need Sales Force Automation

1. Seize opportunities

Sales representatives cannot remember every interaction, deadline, or appointment with potential customers; after all they are just human. They need a central system to manage all of these activities so that they can manage each follow up with their contacts effectively. Sales force automation allows sales representatives to focus their time on increasing the number and quality of interactions, rather than getting caught up with managing their obligations, and possibly missing on sales that were supposed to be completed.

2. Excellent prioritization

In today’s business, the quality of sales leads is most important than the number of sales leads. Companies cannot afford to have their best Sales representatives working on the lowest quality leads, they want to make sure that the sales force is always used in the most optimal way.

Sales force automation tools, help companies to easily assign lead ranks to each potential deal, and also form a clear segmentation between cold sales leads, and hot sales opportunities. The tools also enable companies to track indicators of how important a deal may be, such as the estimated probability that the deal will close. Basically the Sales force automation tools give managers the information required to assign the proper resources to every deal.

3. Forecasting and Intelligence

By properly defining the estimated revenue amount, companies can make accurate projections of future income. This allows them to make intelligent decisions about resource allocation, marketing budgets, and nearly every other aspect of the business. Being able to monitor the future cash flow of the business is invaluable when it comes to running a company, hence the need to have sales force automation tools. These tools easily generate reports that facilitate accurate forecasting and intelligence

The tools also enable companies to easily gain insight as to which steps in their sales process perform poorly, and which steps perform well. They can also differentiate between sales by specific market segments or geographical territories, subsequently enabling the use of refined and optimum marketing and sales techniques that better fit niches that the company excels in.

4. Employee Accountability

Sales force automation systems give companies a detailed breakdown on employee performance. This the systems achieve by tracking each individual sale within the company. As mention earlier, companies gain the ability to run reports and see which steps of the sales process, or which types of customers the company succeeds with. But beyond this, managers can also see how successful each employee is compared to these segments. Sales force automation system reports can also give important pieces of information such as the percentage of opportunities a sales person converts within a defined period.

This sort of intelligence on employee performance is important if companies want to focus resources on training employees to improve, change employee roles to better fit their skills, or reward top employees for a job well done.

5. Collaboration and Data Sharing

Last, but not least, is the ability to share information between your staff. There are many scenarios where the company’s sales process would improve if the sales representatives had a better understanding of who they are contacting, or the past interactions a company has had with a customer. A sales force automation system provides a solutions the ability to manage details on all business contacts, in a central area accessible to all employees.