Why & How Is Sales Force Automation a Sales Person’s Best Friend? Years before, in the early 80s, Sales Force Automation (SFA) made its entry into the industry facing a heavy reluctance from organizations specially field force / sales staff for acceptance of these SFA solutions. Even though the attractive and trust worthy features that SFA reflected were proving to be a huge success in the business enterprises, specially the top management, the sales staff kept having a negative bent towards these solutions, since they always felt these solutions would hinder their daily work, keep a spy on them and have a transparency of their work to the top officials. One more reason, SFA was not popular with the sales staff was the performance of the solutions in terms of speed and efficiency. With time passing by, the quality of the sales force automation solutions upgraded and started becoming an inevitable part of organizations. Enterprises started implementing these robust and effective solutions getting impressed with its advantages, Return on Investment and alluring features. Employees started proving their productivity growth with its usage, at all levels, top as well as middle. There, surely, are a lot of reasons that must have played an important role in changing the views of the end users and act as a vital move in the success of sales force automation solutions. Let us look through the major ones. Major Factors responsible for the friendship of sales staff with Sales Force Automation
ďƒź Major Alteration in Processes Processes and suitability are inseparable. The processes, while smoothening, make them much more adaptable. Initially, it turned out to be a nightmare for field force to sync in their routine activities with the SFA solution and its processes. But, with enhancement in the
quality of the sales force automation solutions, the software processes started mapping itself and it became easier for the end users to adapt to these processes and avail benefits like reduced sales cycle time and enhanced customer satisfaction. Competent and Faster Implementation with SaaS Initially, the SFA systems had a big cost attached to it along with complex implementations. There was comprehensive participation of the IT staff since the end users were not well versed with the intricacies and technologies of the system. With the SaaS model coming in, the end users had independence from the IT staff members and hence, the cost involvement also reduced. The sales people were all geared up to move faster with least disturbance and increased returns. Real time Analytical Reports and Dashboards Originally, sales force automation provided just fundamental contact information and least other data. Now a days, the solutions provide a large array of different reports – analytical, matrix, dashboards all with instant and real time information. Because of these analytics, the sales people are able to show the best of performance with enhanced productivity. There is a very visible synergy between the sales staff and the SFA solutions. Bringing together IT and sales staff There were times when the sales staff was never trained enough and educated about the IT technologies of today. Hence, there was full dependency of them on the IT people, which hindered their own progress. Now with training schedules and best of technology, these sales force automation solutions have provided a lot of confidence and knowledge to the field force with minimal dependency on the IT staff. Integration with Third Party Legacy Systems Thanks to technology, there is a very fine synchronization between the legacy systems and our sales force automation solutions. There is a single point window available now for accessing any type of information, because of which to plan, monitor, execute and implement these activities is an easy task.
It has been a very advantageous situation bridging the gap between sales force automation solutions and the end users, i.e. the field force. SPEC INDIA’s ZooM – an effective and efficient Mobile SFA solution has been implemented by various Fortune 500 companies and has proved its mettle with its attractive and quality rich features. Visit http://www.mobilesalesforceautomation.net and request a FREE DEMO to know more about this solution.