If there is one lesson that the current and past recessions and volatile economic situations have taught most of us, is how to monitor and manage our costs.
What appears not to have yet been learnt is how to organise the disciplined, accountable forecasting of sales by the people who know - the sales team.
Sales reports are by no means as reliable as they ought to be. Certainly, it could be dangerous to base too many important decisions on the results of an unstructured forecasting process.
One reason for the difficulty is the total lack of systems to help people manage sales forecasting. A function that is much more demanding than relying on the low level of assistance offered in using spreadsheets or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, for example.
In most, if not all companies there is a system in place helping to scrutinise and validate the sales forecast and it is not the CRM system. It is the sales manager! If we step back and take a hard look at what happens on a regular basis the same questions are being asked about the current sales opportunities, and depending on the responses the validity of a sales opportunity is accepted or challenged.
To help with the sales forecast the system has to be able to mimic the question and answer process being used by the sales manager. We must have the ability to learn from the responses to the questions being posed and the final outcome of each sales opportunity so that we can refine the questions.
There are systems that are add-ons to CRM systems that are being used for sales forecasting. There is still a lot of work to be done in filtering the data in a CRM system. What is needed is for the data being entered at any one time about the state of a sales opportunity, to be filtered to cut down the work of the sales manager in understanding whether the information can be relied upon.
This approach gives greater control over sales and brings consistency and reliability to the sales forecast. It is taking systems to a level of being more than just a repository of sales data.
The conclusion is that when looking for a system, ask what it will do for you in the area of sales forecasting. Do not accept that it will produce forecast reports. You need the system to give you the information that will help you decide whether you can rely on the report, the issues that are causing the uncertainty.
Back to the equation, we can control our costs and we can rely on our sales forecast. We now have a better understanding of our future business success.
http://www.symvolli.com/
What appears not to have yet been learnt is how to organise the disciplined, accountable forecasting of sales by the people who know - the sales team.
Sales reports are by no means as reliable as they ought to be. Certainly, it could be dangerous to base too many important decisions on the results of an unstructured forecasting process.
One reason for the difficulty is the total lack of systems to help people manage sales forecasting. A function that is much more demanding than relying on the low level of assistance offered in using spreadsheets or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, for example.
In most, if not all companies there is a system in place helping to scrutinise and validate the sales forecast and it is not the CRM system. It is the sales manager! If we step back and take a hard look at what happens on a regular basis the same questions are being asked about the current sales opportunities, and depending on the responses the validity of a sales opportunity is accepted or challenged.
To help with the sales forecast the system has to be able to mimic the question and answer process being used by the sales manager. We must have the ability to learn from the responses to the questions being posed and the final outcome of each sales opportunity so that we can refine the questions.
There are systems that are add-ons to CRM systems that are being used for sales forecasting. There is still a lot of work to be done in filtering the data in a CRM system. What is needed is for the data being entered at any one time about the state of a sales opportunity, to be filtered to cut down the work of the sales manager in understanding whether the information can be relied upon.
This approach gives greater control over sales and brings consistency and reliability to the sales forecast. It is taking systems to a level of being more than just a repository of sales data.
The conclusion is that when looking for a system, ask what it will do for you in the area of sales forecasting. Do not accept that it will produce forecast reports. You need the system to give you the information that will help you decide whether you can rely on the report, the issues that are causing the uncertainty.
Back to the equation, we can control our costs and we can rely on our sales forecast. We now have a better understanding of our future business success.
http://www.symvolli.com/
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