Importance Of Automating The Sales Channel Process
The current sales channel processes go beyond traditional selling and includes multiple sales personnel to reach out to the end-customers
. Just as the business grows, the sales channel becomes bigger, and so does the pressure to manage and streamline the records.Manual tracking of records, on spreadsheets, e-mails and phones may seem to be easier, but they are either too labor expensive, or sometimes just impossible. In business, time is money and automation helps you save both! It has thus become a strategic necessity in the competitive marketplace, and more and more companies are attempting to get on the bandwagon as soon as possible. Sales automation allows better communication and better management of primary, secondary and tertiary sales management, sales return management, warehouse stock management, target and forecast management, price protection management and many more analytics.
When does Sales Automation become Crucial?
While it is easy to track & monitor primary sales, things start getting out of control when they reach the secondary and tertiary levels in the sales distribution channel. Hence it is crucial to track the sales at secondary and tertiary levels to get a seamless visibility across channels, measure real-time sales data and keep track of target Vs. achievement to take right decisions at the appropriate time.
In addition, automation techniques like implementing sales automation software allows you to be informed, and review the ongoing transactions that have been happening in the sales channel. The following points bring focus as to why automating your sales processes is crucial.
Key to information- The key to every business process is information. Automation structures the mass amount of data in useful information. For example, you can identify your product"s primary sales, stock transfer, sales return, and other reports like sales vs. target report. This easy flow of information from user-to-user ensures up-to-the-minute information for quicker decision making.
Reports for analyzing and managing sales flow- The lack of properly placed information offers no basis for accurate reports to analyze the sales flow. This often leaves you uninformed about your product"s placement in the entire sales cycle, which inadvertently leaves no real basis for production planning.
Measure real- Time sales data- The sales data is no good if you aren"t getting the reports out of it in right time. Sales automation lets you measure real-time sales data and can be used for retrospective analysis of business data that can generate significant business value.
Ability to set and measure user"s targets- An all-encompassing sales management software offers the ability to set targets for different users like the vertical heads, sales heads or zonal managers. This also offers the ability to review the targets and analyze the target vs. achievement reports on how your sales channel partners are performing.
Reduced sales processing time- Reduced customer engagement and increased internal communication, which is possible due to sales automation, leads to reduced sales processing time, which thereby leads to optimize the sales life-cycle.
Facilitates Schemes and Offer Handling- Schemes and offers are based on factors like time and stock. With up-to-date information on inventory, you can formulate schemes effectively. A sales automation solution allows the manufacturers to run schemes on the basis of various parameters like scheme concept, validity period and other scheme related details.
Sales automation allows you to identify the blockages in the sales process and effectively use the information for managing the entire sales lifecycle. If you are planning to implement sales automation software for your business processes, you can begin with identifying your unique requirements with your software partner, while keeping the above mentioned points in mind.
by: Rakes Kumar