Advantages and Disadvantages of Sales Force Automation free essay sample

Managing sales is not difficult while a company is small. However, when sales start to grow, it is very hard to manage enlarged sales workflow as effectively as before. It is because the increasing number of sales tasks, the number of regions, customers and products. It is taxing for salespersons to handle sales grows without a special system for planning, tracking, analysing, reporting, and controlling all aspects of sales activity, projects and tasks. Therefore, various sales management systems are developed in order to order to assist sales force operation. Sales Force Automation systems (SFA) are sales management systems that record all the stages in a sales process. SFA tracks all contact that has been made with customers, the purpose of the contact, and any information that might be needed. This ensures that sales efforts would not be duplicated. This eliminates unnecessary procedures and the risk of irritating customers. SFA also includes a sales lead tracking system, sales forecasting, order management and product knowledge. 2. 0 Advantages of Sales Force Automation System (SFA) Technology is critical for success in selling and marketing today. When implemented strategically and effectively, it can provide a lot of benefits. The Internet is one of the ideal platforms for SFA. SFA systems have features where customers can customise the product to meet their required needs through online product building systems. This is becoming more and more popular in the IT industry, where consumers can customise various features. For instance: Dell computer offers optional product features and accessories for consumers. By adopting SFA, Dell’s sales operation becomes more efficient and thus operating cost can be minimised. Businesses which use the Customer relationship management (CRM) as a form of SFA strategy will benefit from it. CRM is a strategy where companies choose and manage the most valuable customer relationship (Ingram et al. 2006, p. 53). SFA as a CRM tool will help companies to effectively manage customer relationship provided there is a right direction and strategy. Customer relationship management is an example of a technology that can provide substantial business value for your sales and marketing functions (Stein 2006). SFA is also been used as a profit maximising tool. By investing in SFA, with proper sales force training; a company’s value will be increased and it will be a competitive advantage for the company. For instance: Marriott hotel adopts SFA to maximise its room occupancy in a way that it will bring most revenue to the hotel. Besides, SFA also helps the sales manager to safe time. Before, the sales manager had to do the analytic job manually and it could take up a whole day. Today, the sales manager can get the job done in less than an hour with the help of SFA. SFA has enabled the $9 billion company to extend its competitive advantage at a time when its competitors were struggling just to survive (Overby 2005). 3. 0 Disadvantages of Sales Force Automation System (SFA) However, SFA does have its disadvantages as well. If SFA systems are not adopted and properly integrated to all departments, there might be a lack of communication which could result in different departments contacting the same customer for the same purpose. In order to ease this risk, SFA must be fully integrated in all departments that deal with customer service management. Software that automates sales and marketing, also known as front-office functions, is being adopted by many firms today. However, the capability to measure its ROI is controversial. This is because the systems are not easy enough to use for salespeople with broadly ranging technical skill, a lack of real support and also proper financial support from the top management (Holt Radosevich 1998). CRM, on the other hand; will turn out to be disaster if the sales force is not properly guided. If the company’s messages are confusing and your marketing team is working without a plan, the company’s customer elationship will be worst off. Sales person are forced to spend some part of their day inputting information about their prospects into a CRM system, but without gaining any value from the process, they are going to get demotivated (Stein 2006). For instance: Toshibas PC business also took a light-handed approach when getting its salespeople to adopt CRM. Toshiba constantly improve the system to help convince their salespeople to use it. Toshiba also deployed a data entry group to populate the CRM database, rather than depending on salespeople to do it in their spare time (James 2003). Eventually, Toshiba spend more financial and human resources unnecessarily. In addition, there are certain products where personal contact is crucial. SFA dehumanised a sales process that is suppose to be personal. For example: industrial products. Therefore, SFA are not meant for B2B sales, but B2C sales like Dell computers and Louis Voitton purses. 4. 0 Conclusion In order to adapt to the rapid development of the technology nowadays, firms have to adopt SFA in order to stay competitive as SFA can create competitive advantage. However, proper governance should be give from the top management to the sales force in order to avoid any complication which will further affect the sales management process. Thus, efficiency can be optimised and avoid wastage of resources. Last but not least, application of SFA is only appropriate when the business only requires minimum personal contact with the buyers.