Sales Force Automation

Sales Force Automation

Sales Force Automation (SFA) is a subject that has received much attention in recent times. The SFA market has been hit with more than its fair share of failure stories. However, due to increasing competitive pressures and vendor consolidations, there is now a wide range of comprehensive solutions available that can have a very positive impact on your organization.

In addition to vendors such as Siebel and Clarify, most of the major ERP vendors (SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft, Oracle, and J.D. Edwards) are producing SFA solutions that are integrated with their underlying ERP systems.

Why automate?

Help your sales force sell products using less time and effort

SFA solutions aim to improve the efficiency of all the customer-oriented processes in your organization - helping you to serve customers more efficiently and rapidly while simultaneously reducing the running costs of your organization.

At the heart of an SFA solution is the sales and marketing database that records every "customer touch" in your organization. SFA software combines a number of processes to help your sales force sell products using less time and effort than they are currently using. These include processes to help save time when they are away from the customer - giving them more time to spend with new or existing customers. There are also processes to help salespeople make the time that they have with a customer more productive and processes to facilitate the more efficient transfer of information throughout your entire organization.

A well-configured and implemented SFA solution will help you improve customer service in your organization by giving you timely and accurate information about sales orders. It will also help you to follow up on commitments within the agreed time frame and help you to ensure regular customer contact and follow-up.

The management of your organization will have real-time access to customer information and an improved ability to monitor rapidly changing sales trends. An SFA solution will also help management to carry out targeted marketing campaigns and to maintain close electronic ties with customers.

All employees in your organization will have access to the information in the database, including up-to-date information about products, prices, customer order histories, and customer profiles. This information can be detailed down to the level of an individual customer or product - enabling you to improve your responses to customers and to changing market conditions.

Which SFA solution?

There are SFA solutions available from a multitude of vendors - the one you choose will depend on the size of your organization and your exact business requirements. The types of solution available range from contact management systems that encompass a limited range of functionality through to more powerful enterprise-wide SFA systems at the higher end of the market that integrate fully with the ERP backbone of your organization. Most SFA solutions are highly customizable allowing them to integrate with your organization's needs.

SAP's SFA solution

SAP's SFA offering is a complete solution designed to be integrated with the SAP? R/3? system or used as a standalone system. The main components of SAP's SFA solution include

• Customer/Prospect Management - a database of customer information that affords fast and flexible access to all customer-related data
• an electronic address book and calendar
• Activity Management - to help you plan appointments, visits, presentations, and so on by providing access to current and historical information
• Order Management - to give you access to customer order status information
• Sales Project Management - gathers all information about activities that could lead to future orders
• Marketing Encyclopedia - a repository of information for the sales force
• Sales Pricing and Sales Configuration Engines
• E-mail Inbox/Outbox

SAP's SFA solution comes with configuration tools and a workbench that allows you to tailor the solution to your specific business needs. It also includes a selection of preconfigured industry solutions.

Conclusion

More responsive production times with fewer false starts

SFA software can help to speed up the sales cycle in your organization. The benefits of an SFA solution can include the ability to obtain more sales orders and to focus more accurately on customer demands. In addition to this, when SFA is tied in with your backbone ERP system, you can expect more responsive production times with fewer false starts. You can manage your inventory more closely and the cost savings from this can be used for investment elsewhere in your organization.