Information Systems for Sales and
Marketing
Role Of Marketing Information
Systems
For monitoring the efficiency and effectiveness
of the distribution of their products and services,
sales managers need information to plan and
monitor the sales force
Management needs information on the
performance of specific products, product lines,
or brands
Price, revenue, cost and growth information can
be used for pricing decisions, for evaluating the
performance of current products, and for
predicting the performance of future products
Marketing Information Systems
• A marketing information system consists of people,
equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze,
evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate
information to marketing decision makers.
Main aspects of marketing information
System
Sales
Order-to-Payment
Information
Cycle
System
Databases,
Marketing
Warehousing,
Intelligence
Data mining
System
Mining
Multidimensional Analysis-OLAP
Steps to Improve Marketing Intelligence
Train
Train sales
sales force
force to
to scan
scan for
for new
new developments
developments
Motivate
Motivate channel
channel members
members to
to share
share intelligence
intelligence
Network
Network externally
externally
Utilize
Utilize aa customer
customer advisory
advisory panel
panel
Utilize
Utilize government
government data
data resources
resources
Purchase
Purchase information
information
Collect
Collect customer
customer feedback
feedback online
online
Sales information System-Ex
Channel Systems
• Systems which support the operations of the sales
and distribution channel are known as channel
systems
• An all encompassing information system which
helps informate the supply chain from the
customer side to the supplier side is a supply chain
management (SCM) system
What is Supply chain?
Supplier Manufacturer Distributor Retailer Customer
Consists of all parties involved, directly
or indirectly, in fulfilling a customer
request
Flow Of Information Along the
Supply Chain
Importance of Channel Systems
Keep Goods Moving
- provides you visibility to inventory levels at your suppliers, and visibility to inventory in-transit to you – as
well as how long it takes to get there and why
Managing Supplier Performance
- SCM quantitatively tracks the performance of your suppliers – who delivers on-time, who delivers partially,
who has the best invoice accuracy – so that you can identify the best trading partners and give them the
majority of your business
Measuring Channel Effectiveness
- keep track of your customers’ buying habits across increasingly more complex channel mixes
Providing Customer Service
- SCM can help assemble the information needed, across your supply chain, to
answer the seemingly simple question, “Where is my order?” and explain a delay or
provide an alternative option, such as shipping a partial order or finding an alternate
source for a back-ordered item
Managing co-ordination and uncertainity through dynamic scheduling of sales
and distribution
Flow of data from point of sale
terminals to suppliers
The Sales Process
Plan
- activities in this stage include training, demand forecasting, call
targeting, and devising the channel strategy
Pre-sale
- activities in this stage are lead management, generating proposals,
product planning, pricing and customer query handling
- main aim is to contact prospective customers and target sales efforts to
maximize results
Sell Activities
- customer co-ordination, presentation tools, order entry, call
management, promotion management, etc.
Post-sale Activities
- order status, billing, installation, warranty, etc.
Relationship
- a very important step it involves, networking with customers, analysis
of customer requirements and problems, generating reports, etc.
Review Business
- review, product development, creating recognition, analyzing
competition etc.
Sales Support Systems
• Sales support systems are applications that
facilitate the interface between the sales force and
the corporation in the support of the customer
Sales Force Automation Tools
Sales Process/Activity Management
Offer calendars to assist in the planning of key
customer events
Proposal presentations
Product demonstrations
Alarm Reminders
Signal important tasks
Generate documents as they are needed
Make decisions based on the user’s input
Generate a mailing suggestions
Sales Force Automation Tools
Sales and Territory Management
Tools that enable sales managers and executives
on-demand access to sales activities
Before, during and after the order
Enables managers to set up sales teams and link
individual accounts, regions and industries.
Allows tracing of territory assignments and
monitor pipelines and leads for individual
territories.
Allows optimization of individual teams
Sales Force Automation Tools
Contact Management
Deals with organizing and managing data across
and within a company’s client and prospect
organizations.
See p. 84 of the types of questions that can be
answered with this tool.
Sales Force Automation Tools
Lead Management
Also known as “opportunity management” and
“pipeline management”
Track customer account history
Monitor leads
Generate next steps and
Refine selling efforts online
Allows sales management to automatically
distribute client leads to a field or telemarketing
rep based on the re’s product knowledge or
territory
Sales Force Automation Tools
Configuration Support
Automatically factors in complex customer
attributes and requirements to build a solution
from scratch
Among the companies who may use such tools
Computer technology vendors
Appliance manufacturers
Telephone companies
Knowledge Management-SFA
Many CRM tools geared to SFA include
functions specific to accessing and conversing
on a range of corporate documentation to
supplement sales efforts and provide fast data
during the heat of a sale.
