Sales Automation

Connecting a sales force and senior management with a knowledge base of internal, competitive, and customer account information in real time, from anywhere

The traditional selling process involves an abundance of "touch points"--an appointment with a customer, a credit check, an inventory request, a purchase order, a phone call to management to talk strategy, a new-account entry in a PC. Each step absorbs time--for both salespeople and support staff--and ends up diverting energy from the ultimate goal of meeting a customer's needs and selling a solution.

Sales automation creates a single environment for managing all aspects of customer contacts and selling. Account information, contact records, credit data, inventory reports, and all other pieces of intelligence that support the process are placed at the fingertips of each salesperson, to access anytime, from anywhere. Sales automation applications contain a blend of several components, such as an opportunity management system (OMS), forecast tools, and team selling platforms.

Field sales forces--as well as internal salespeople and telemarketing staffs--can use these tools to locate new prospects, collaborate with colleagues or alliance partners, track down vital product information, scan competitive data, place orders, instantly check inventories, and deliver pricing updates to customers without having to call a half-dozen different numbers or pore over as many databases. Sales automation gives companies the ability to:

• Reach beyond their geographic boundaries and size limitations to find and serve customers anywhere in the world

• Keep field sales teams in close contact with managers, colleagues, and customers

• Convene large sales meetings, without incurring any travel costs

• Provide inside salespeople with enhanced tools for anticipating customer needs, processing customer information and spotting cross-selling opportunities

• Shorten product cycles, with real-time input direct from customers, channeled through the sales force

• Enhance relationships with customers, by equipping salespeople to better anticipate and satisfy their customers' needs

Implementing Sales Automation

The earliest contact-management software for PCs helped track customer account and appointment information. But the real power of sales automation derives from connecting salespeople to all the central business intelligence they need to be more effective--real-time inventory data, new product information, competitive data, pricing and more. Sales automation strives to create an interactive, fully networked selling process.

Access to this store of business intelligence starts with the company intranet, which can provide a consolidated window on various company databases (pricing, availability, competitive research, and so on). The natural evolution of any sales automation system is to offer access to this same intelligence to mobile users via the Internet. And a new generation of Internet-based sales automation applications is now emerging, fully capitalizing on the wide reach and flexibility of the Web.

An Internet-enabled sales automation solution lets salespeople connect to central information from anywhere, simply by dialing into an Internet service provider. Obviously, security becomes a key consideration when a company offers pathways to its private data over the public Web, so the underlying network solutions need to support leading Internet security standards and provide firewall protection to maintain strict controls on incoming and outgoing data. For maximum effectiveness, a sales automation application also depends on robust service in the business' internal network, to link sales teams and managers, and to closely coordinate the sales and planning processes.