To read part 1, click here.

Sales operations commonly is one of the next functions businesses will automate after doing so to billing. Unfortunately, it also can be a difficult operation for which to quantify the benefit of automation.

Typically, there are a number of key drivers that push a decision maker to invest in sales-force automation:

• Smaller customers or quotes are falling through the cracks;


• A desire to capture information on sales leads; so that if a salesperson leaves the company, all their sales pipeline information does not leave with them;


• There are enough salespeople such that even a small increase in sales productivity represents a cost savings;


• Sales operations are mechanical enough (for example: a high-volume lead calling shop) that automation will result in a clear operational cost savings;


• Salespeople are complaining about the existing sales management tool (for example: it's too slow, it's too cumbersome, etc.);


• Recognition that a good system could result in increased revenue through holding the salespeople to task, assisting in follow up, automating quote generation, etc.;


• The sales process is completely disjointed from the fulfillment process, creating noticeable gaps in customer service or problems with order processing;


• Management is tired of not having any practical and quantitative visibility into the sales process, and has felt unable to hold salespeople to task.

The fundamental question of establishing a return on investment for the sales department is this: Will I be able to increase sales by X percent and/or cut costs by Y percent?

The math is fairly simple and begins with knowing the system's cost. For this example, let's say the cost of the system is $10,000. Let's further assume we need to see money returned to us in no more than six months.

From the revenue side, how much would we need to be able to increase sales productivity to generate that return? If you have two salespeople, each salesperson would need to be able to generate an additional $5,000 in six months. If an average salesperson generates $500,000 in revenue during that time, then we need to see increased sales capability from the system of exactly 1 percent.

A new system should increase a salesperson's productivity by making it faster and easier to do common tasks. He or she should be able to enter data faster, write an e-mail faster, look up information on an account faster, even generate a quote faster. Because he or she is doing everything faster, he or she should be able to spend more time selling.

A new system also should give management real-time visibility into the actions of the salesperson. On any given day, management should be able to see first-hand that the salesperson is adding notes and making calls, or they aren't. What is the value of immediately knowing whether proper sales behavior is taking place, versus waiting six months and losing the quote only to realize proper sales behavior was not happening six months ago?

In our example, if each of these benefits will result in a 1 percent increase in sales, then this would be a sensible automation purchase.

Next week I'll look at the order entry and management process for how to identify automation opportunities.

Treff LaPlante is president and chief executive officer of Carlisle-based WorkXpress.