Eliminate the hassle and dramatically improve the accuracy of your sales forecasts
1．Issue: The burden of manually inputting scheduled order amounts and dates
Company W sells BtoB cloud services.
The sales process begins with inside sales representatives reaching out to potential clients to secure appointments. Successful appointments are then passed on to sales representatives as sales negotiations. This workflow is managed through a dedicated sales negotiation management system.
Sales representatives currently spend a significant amount of time each Friday transferring data from the workflow system to a Google spreadsheet to compile sales forecasts. This process is necessary for the manager to create reports on sales forecasts for the management team, which include information like the expected order amount for business negotiations.
Additionally, managers’ sales forecasts are negatively impacted by the abundance of updated information that is not transferred.
2．Solution: Updating and adding spreadsheet rows automatically
The process owner modifies the workflow so that when an appointment is made for a deal, the deal information is automatically added to the sales forecast spreadsheet. Also, if there is a change in the deal information, it is automatically overwritten.
Before
View workflow diagram details
- 1. Get an appointment
- When an inside sales representative makes an appointment with a potential customer, they send it to the [Update deal] Step.
- 2. Update deal
- The sales representative updates the deal information and completes the [Update deal] step after meeting with the customer.
- Decision to terminate business negotiations
- The manager will receive an automatic email notification when a deal’s status changes to either “Closed” or “Lost.”
After
View workflow diagram details
- 1. Get an appointment
- When an inside sales representative makes an appointment with a potential customer, they send it to the [Update deal] Step.
- 1x. Add to deal list
- A row will be automatically added to the end of your sales spreadsheet and data will be entered into each cell.
- 2. Update deal
- The sales representative updates the deal information and completes the [Update deal] step after meeting with the customer.
- 2x. Update deal list
- Each cell in the corresponding row in your sales management spreadsheet will be automatically updated.
- Completion decision
- The manager will receive an automatic email notification when the deal status is changed to either “Closed” or “Lost”.
Compare Before/After
3．Effects
Improved forecast accuracy
- Managers’ sales forecasts are significantly more accurate because transcription errors and omissions are eliminated.
- This enables forecasts based on accurate data, improving the quality of business decisions.
Business efficiency
- By eliminating manual input work, the operational burden on sales personnel is significantly reduced.
- This boosts salespeople’s productivity by enabling them to allocate more time to sales and customer interaction.
Real-time sales forecasting
- Since sales information is automatically updated, sales forecasts that could previously only be made once a week can now be made in real time.
- Predictions based on real-time data allow for rapid responses to dynamic market conditions.