Sirius decisions buyer journey mapping12/26/2023 ![]() ![]() The rest of the executive leadership team-by which I mean product management, marketing, engineering, and manufacturing, for example-are all concerned (or should be) with resource allocation, budgets, revenue, and capacity planning, all of which are closely tied to sales performance.įinally, you have the service delivery functions, such as customer service and professional services, that are also trying to manage demands on resources and conduct capacity planning. The depth of finance involvement may vary depending on the organizational structure and the capabilities of the sales operations team. The key is to leverage any data you ask the rep to enter into the sales force automation platform.įinance obviously has a role to play here and is usually closely aligned with sales operations in designing and managing the forecast process. They have to use the sales force automation platform not just for forecast reviews, but for opportunity reviews, account reviews, call planning, and other sales-related activities. We talked earlier about sales leaders and their role in enforcing the discipline of the forecast process. When it comes to the actual sales forecast process within a company, sales ops may be primarily responsible, but what about the rest of the organization? What are their roles when it comes to building an accurate forecast? When you consider the ever-increasing amount of data about buyer behavior and business performance available today, and combine that with advanced analytics tools and data science, we see that expectations from investors, shareholders, board members, and senior executives for accuracy are increasing, and the willingness to tolerate surprises is decreasing. Some of the pressure is internal and some of it is external. So where does that urgency and expectation come from, and why is it higher now? This perception applies to both public and privately held companies-especially those that are trying to raise money or on a path to an IPO. Investors can see it as a sign of confidence (or lack thereof) in the leadership team. Forecast accuracy is considered a critical indicator of the ability of the company and executive to manage the business. Steve Silver: It's not necessarily more important, but it's certainly more urgent and the expectations are higher. Is forecast accuracy more important now than it has been in the past-and if so, what caused that change? Why? As part of our webinar with Steve, we spoke to him about the current state of sales forecasting today and trends in sales forecasting technology. Steve Silver is the Senior Research Director of the Sales Operations Practice at SiriusDecisions. ![]()
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