Marketing
Marketing sub module primarily deals with providing functionalities of Long term planning and Short term execution of Marketing related Activities within an organization.
Marketing Planning
Long term Market Plans can be made and Quantitative as well as Qualitative measures (targets) can be set for a defined period and for different product groups, geographies etc. These are then monitored based on the actual performance throughout the defined period.
Campaign Management
Short Term execution includes running Marketing campaigns via different communication channels targeting a pre-defined group of potential buyers with a specific message referring to a product or a group of products.
Lead Management
One key objective of the Marketing function is to generate sales related leads, which finally get converted into Sales Revenues for the company. Marketing campaigns with the specific objective of generating leads (Prospective customers who may be interested in a product). Lead management deals with processing these Leads, carrying out a sanity check, evaluating the genuineness of the information (Since, there is a lot of information that is gathered during Marketing Campaigns it becomes necessary to screen these leads), and finally converting them to Hot Leads or Cold Leads.
Sales
Sales functionalities are focused on helping the Sales team to execute and manage the presales process better and in an organized manner. Sales team is responsible for regularly capturing key customer interactions, any leads or opportunities they are working on etc, in CRM system. The system helps by processing this data, monitoring against the targets and proactively alerting the sales person with recommended further actions based on company's sales policy.
Opportunity Management
Opportunities help the Sales team by organizing all the relevant data regarding a prospective deal into one place. It is characterized by the details such as Prospective customer, expected budget, total spending, products interested in, expected closing date, Key players in the deal and there key characteristics, important dates and milestones etc.The Opportunity has several phases, e.g. initiation, identification, qualification, RFP received, quotation sent, final stage, won or lost. Of course these phases can be defined based on individual company needs. A CRM system helps in each phase by "Guiding" the Sales representative to carry out certain suggested activities as defined by the company's sales policy. It creates reminders and planned activities within the system. e.g. if the Opportunity has reached "RFP received" stage, and the deal size is more than (say) 50,000 USD, the system can prompt the representative to hold a review discussion with a senior manager. This is often referred as "Guided Sales Methodology". Opportunities can be directly converted into Quotations or Sales Orders.
Quotation and Sales Order Management
Opportunities if reaches a Quotation phase can be converted to a quotation, and, if won gets converted to a Sales order. Standard features of creating a "linked" Quotation or Sales Order from opportunities are provided. These Sales orders then flow to the Back-End (ERP) system for further execution and Delivery.
Activity Management
Activities represent various Sales or Service related interactions with the customer (meetings, discussions, telephone calls, emails). Activity Management provides a platform to consolidate all the interactions with customer into a single platform, helping to build a 360 degree view of customer. Activities can be synchronized to MS Outlook/Lotus Notes Calendar items (Meetings and Tasks)
Service
Service related functionalities are focused on effectively managing the customer service (Planned or Unplanned), avoid "leakage" of Warranty based services, avoid "Penalties" arising due to Non conformity of SLA (Service Level Agreements), and provide first and Second Level support to Customers. Several functionalities are mentioned below:
- Service Order Management
- Service Contract Management
- Planned Services management
- Warranty Management
- Installed Base (Equipment) Management
- SLA Management
- Resource Planning and Scheduling
- Knowledge Management (FAQs, How to guides)
- Call Center Support
- Resource Planning and Workforce Management