In the distribution business, salespeople are more commonly referred to as salesforce. They are the ones who are in the field, opening market opportunities and monitoring the absorption of products to arrange the delivery of goods to wholesalers and retailers. The complexity of salesforce tasks requires every company to build and implement a system that can automate all its functions. Sales force automation is often called Sales Force Automation (SFA).
In almost all businesses, sales spearhead the company's growth rate. No wonder this profession is always highly paid despite the challenges that come with it. Although the main task is to generate turnover, each salesperson has a different character depending on the type of business.
SFA is a system that can simplify business processes and tasks usually carried out by the sales team. The goal is to make business processes more efficient so the sales team can focus on making sales.
Here are some of the functions that can be automated by Sales Force Automation (SFA)
- Order and purchase process
- Tracking of the entire sales process
- Monitoring sales location and whereabouts with GPS
- Salesforce KPIs
- Reporting and analytics.
Then, what exactly is the function of Sales Force Automation (SFA) implementation?
- Make sales management more efficient
As explained earlier, sales is a complex process. Sales is not only a process of handing over goods and then a transaction occurs, but more than that, many processes accompany the arrival of the transaction.
For example, a salesperson must precisely know the target market, product distribution area, and customer character. Another tough task is that every salesforce must make periodic reports, which are often still found to be done manually. Inevitably, the complexity of these processes consumes more time than a salesperson's core task, which is to increase turnover.
SFA digitizes almost all of the above processes and integrates them with other functions in the business. In the end, SFA will ease the work of the salesforce and allow them to focus on their main job of expanding the market and getting new customers.
- Simplify the Upselling and cross-selling process.
Through the sales data contained in the system, SFA can help marketing processes, including upselling and cross-selling. These two activities are part of promotion or gimmick marketing. With Sales Force Automation (SFA), the sales team can decide which products can be given an up-selling program and which can be cross-sold.
The goal, of course, is to increase the number of products absorbed in the market and ultimately provide new income for the company.
- Save operational time
One of the benefits that can be obtained from Sales Force Automation (SFA) is that it can save time, costs and sales team energy. If it used to take a long time to present customer data reports, record daily visit reports and other administrative activities, with SFA, you can present data in real-time and can be accessed via your smartphone anywhere.
In addition, SFA will reduce errors in data entry for sales tasks that used to be done manually and took quite a long time. This means that with SFA, sales staff can more easily update the data anytime and anywhere because it is cloud-based.
- Improve service and build relationships with customers
This Sales Force Automation (SFA) application is designed to assist the marketing department in attracting and retaining customers, managing accounts, and, most importantly, providing profit from sales. In addition, Sales Force Automation (SFA) also helps managers in activities directly related to customers and internal company activities that always struggle to meet customer demand.
With optimal service, a good relationship is formed between the customer and the sales person.