Sales operations are a set of business activities and processes that help a sales organization run effectively, efficiently and in support of business strategies and objectives. Sales operations may also be referred to as sales operations, sales support or business operations.
The set of sales operations activities vary from company to company but often include these eight categories:
The sales operations team members are often the liaisons for sales to other parts of the organization such as finance, marketing and IT. They will represent the needs of sales in meetings and cross-functional projects.
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More and more mid to large size companies are forming sales operations departments within their organizations. and, per the sales operations excellence center, 54% of sales operations groups are less than three years old.
In the past, these functions were non-existent, handled by sales managers or scattered throughout an organization. Companies are now recognizing the significant benefits of sales operations activities and the need for centralization and formal leadership.
Sales operations activities; help sales leaders make sound and timely business decisions to drive short term and long term performance, help sales leaders align selling resources with the greatest opportunities in the most cost effective ways, help ensure all sales personnel are treated fairly and are paid accurately, help improve sales performance through better processes, technology and methodologies, help to improve employee morale
Ultimately sales operations activities significantly contribute to the success of a sales organization and that organizations ability to meet/exceed business targets.
Sales quota is the minimum sales goal for a set time span. A sales quota may be minimum amount of dollars or product sold. Sales quotas may also be for sales activity like: number of calls per day. Management usually sets the sales quota and the sales territory. The time span could be set for the day, week, month or fiscal quarter or year.
Sales territory is a usually a geographical area assigned to a salesperson or group of persons. The geographical area may also be assigned to franchisee, distributor, or agent. A sales territory may also be assigned by type of customers, as all retailers or all wholesalers in geographical area. A sales territory may be as large as: a continent, a nation or half a nation, or as small as a: town or city. A sales manager may have a sales territory different than the sales persons overseen.