5 Prime Reasons Why Sales Force Automation is a Sales Person’s Best Pal

With the entry of sales force automation (SFA), years ago, in the 1980s, organizations and especially field force / sales staff were highly reluctant to accept and adapt these SFA solutions. Although the salient features and benefits that SFA proposed were quite enthralling and promising, the perception that the sales staff had, was towards a negative bent, feeling that these solutions would act as a spy to their work, giving each and every detail of theirs to the higher management, thereby restricting their work freedom. Also, solutions, in earlier times, did not meet the user expectations in terms of speed, efficiency and performance. Hence, it was not convincing for the end user to completely surrender their daily activities to this new solution.

As time flew, the scenario kept changing and sales force automation started becoming an inevitable part of organizations, thereby, reaching the ground level of employees and touching them with its benefits, ROI and user friendly features. You see organizations who have implemented robust and efficient SFA solutions and you will find a large amount of satisfaction and enhanced productivity in the employees, be it top management or sales staff / field force.

What, amongst the multitude of reasons, played a pivotal role in convincing end users to adapt to these solutions and prove itself as a significant move in success of any organization? Let us have a glance through the top 5 moves, which led to the success of sales force automation in the industry.

Pointers responsible for compatibility of Sales Force Automation with the sales staff

Real time Analytics and Dashboards

In the initial years of sales force automation, the solution yielded just basic contact management information with minimal information available. Now with the entry of attractive, efficient and comprehensive analytical reports, matrix reports, and dashboards – all at the tip of a finger and that too real-time, the situation has changed to a large extent. These analytics has empowered sales staff to perform better, increasing their productivity and providing them with clear cut instructions to proceed further in their daily work. Sales people have started trusting their SFA solutions, thereby creating a deep synergy between them.

Integration with Third Party Legacy Systems

Today’s modern day sales force automation systems are all set to integrate with any existing third party legacy systems, already existing with the client. With perfect synchronization between the SFA solution and the legacy one, it provides a big relief for the sales staff and field force to witness a single front end to access any type of information. Planning, monitoring, execution and implementation of activities becomes much easier for the sales representatives.

Efficient and Swifter Implementation with SaaS

The original sales force automation systems had a huge cost factor attached to it and a difficult and complex implementation procedure. With detailed involvement of IT staff, the end users found it difficult to balance between the software and the actual requirements. With the introduction of SaaS model, the dependency of end user staff on IT people became minimal, the cost factor also reduced and the field force was all charged up to act faster with minimal disturbances and maximized ROI and investments.

Significant Modifications in Processes

Processes and acceptability go hand in hand. Smoother the processes, higher is the adaptability. Originally, it was tough for sales people to synchronize their daily activities with the SFA solution because they could not map their daily activities with the software processes. With time going by, today’s modern day sales force automation solutions are well furbished with software processes mapped equivalently with processes being followed by the sales staff and hence when it come to implementation and usage, field force is all set to use it and are pretty comfortable with it too, leading to solid advantages like reduced sales cycle time and increased client satisfaction.

Synchronization between IT and sales staff

One more big change that has been observed over these years is that initially, sales people were dependent on technology and were hardly trained or aware about it. That was the prime reason, no synergy was observed between the two. With modern day technology weaving itself into the sales force automation solutions with ease and flexibility, today, the

field force is confident and well trained on using the software. Now, technology is dependent on the sales force processes rather than vice versa.

It is a big boon to see the breach lessening between sales force automation solutions and the end users – the sales force. SPEC INDIA’s ZooM – a flagship Mobile SFA solution, has been garnering a lot of attention with its enhanced, lucid and efficient features.

Visit www.mobilesalesforceautomation.net and request a FREE DEMO to know more about this product.