Going From People Driven To Process Driven
A process driven organization has certain obvious advantages over a people driven organization. Many old fashioned entrepreneurs still prefer to be people driven for the fear of losing control over their organization. However a large majority still aims as process oriented as the ultimate way to create an organization. Many have tried and failed because […]
Doing Business in India
The recent report by the World Bank about doing business in India places the country at 130 among the nearly 180 countries surveyed. India has risen by four places as compared to 2015 and other parameters in the index have improved. The change of government in 2014 which ushered in a pro business and pro-reform […]
The Free Healthcare Debate
Healthcare has become outrageously expensive in most developed nations of the world. For instance, American citizens who do not have health insurance are relatively sure that they will not be able to meet their own healthcare costs. The same is the situation in many countries around the world. This has created a debate wherein healthcare […]
Goods and Services Tax: The Pros and Cons
India is the second largest consumer market in the world. There are over a billion consumers, and companies from all over the world are making inroads into this developing nation to get a piece of the action. The Indian growth story has been remarkable and resilient. It has been resilient because the growth has happened […]
Warehouse Design Concepts
Supply chain efficiencies depend upon the efficiency of logistics including transportation and warehousing operations. Warehouse efficiencies depend upon a combination of warehouse design, layout, infrastructure, systems, process and people. In cases where one can design a warehouse and implement the complete project from ground zero, gives the SCM Project Manager a good scope to create […]
Sales support systems were developed to assist the sales force in improving productivity. This improvement in productivity was through continuous communication with the field offices about customer activities and requirements. The sales force focus was on cultivating long and fruitful customer relation.
Before the advent of information system, customer-related information was recorded in individual sales representative’s personal books rather than on a centralized data center. This meant that the customer information would be lost with movement of sales representative.
Therefore, to preserve and utilized customer relation and improve performance of sales force, sales support system was developed.
A sales support system can be divided into:
This module of the sales support system looks at offering calendar based activities to plan and coordinate meetings with customer relationship accounts. The module looks at consolidating team activities for a given period of time. The module provides in-depth analysis of the historical and current sales cycle.
Sales force racks up into team member and team member into the sales manager. Therefore, sales manager has to monitor activities of more than one sales team. This module helps sales manager generate reports, which provide data point around current sale activities performed by the different sales team. This module helps sales force connect with various product specialists based out of various sales office locations. Territory-wise pipeline management becomes easy for the sales manager.
One of the important needs of sales force and sales team is management of various contact points across different organization. Contact management module should be able to organize contact across current and potential client organization.
Sales force work relentlessly to generate a sales lead. Lead management module provides management of leads, which come through marketing campaigns and referral management. This module also tracks characteristics of each lead as to highlight other possible leads.
Every organization has distinctive and varied product requirement. It is important for the sales force to have ready access to different product configuration and associated price. This module facilitates configuration support.
The modern information system can hold large volume of data, which can be effectively converted into information.
Advent of the Internet has simplified sales force access to centralized databases. It helps sales force stay in touch with each other as well as sales manager. Availability of the Internet has reduced the cost of managing communication. Mobile devices have further contributed to proliferation sales support system.
Another aspect of sales is after sales product support. Organizations have on-site or field service staff. The Internet has made field service management possible on a real-time basis.
Sales support system enhances productivity and efficiency of the sales force. The sales force remains aware of development around the potential clients on a real-time basis. This increases probability of closing a sales deal. The productive sales force not only increases market share but also improves profitability of organization.
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Communication Systems and Groupware – Information System Concepts that Apply in All Functional Areas of Business
February 12, 2025
