Proposals Part 9 (Appendix)

Often I have seen people struggling with drafting proposals, so I have gone ahead and laid some points which one can keep in one's mind while dealing with this task 

This is the 9th part of the series

Possible Appendix items

• Honors
• Overview of the team members
• References and testimonials
• Copies of forms
• Dissemination plan
• Detailed timeline
• Terminology List
• Subject Index
• Visuals
• Drawings
• Pre and post SWOT Analysis
• Description of subcontractors
• Evaluation Instrument
• Forms
• Management agreement and fee structure
• Bibliography or source cited 

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance its Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Proposals Part 8 (Ending)

Often I have seen people struggling with drafting proposals, so I have gone ahead and laid some points which one can keep in one's mind while dealing with this task

This is the 8th part of the series

ENDING

• Introduction
• Purpose statement
• Brief summary
• Overview or review
• Background information if unsolicited

In the End (you can also) :

• Restate the benefits
• Include a summary
• Conclusions
• Recommendations
• Action plan
• Deadline

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Proposals Part 7 (Drafting III)

Often I have seen people struggling with drafting proposals, so I have gone ahead and laid some points which one can keep in one's mind while dealing with this task 

This is the 7th part of the series

Opposition

• Potential Issues
• Possibility of issues happening
• Specific mitigation steps

Evaluation

• Methods
• Outside Evaluator

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance its Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Proposals Part 6 (Drafting II)

Often I have seen people struggling with drafting proposals, so I have gone ahead and laid some points which one can keep in one's mind while dealing with this task 

This is the 6th part of the series

Qualifications and Experience

• Reasons your company is best for the project
• Your competitive strengths
• Qualifying experiences you have
• Additional qualified people who will be added 

Personnel Areas

• Who will do what
• Capabilities experience and training
• Experience of key members
• Previous successes

Policies and procedures

• Assessments
• Transparency

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance its Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Proposals Part 5 (Drafting)

Often I have seen people struggling with drafting proposals, so I have gone ahead and laid some points which one can keep in one's mind while dealing with this task 

This is the 5th part of the series

Time or Task Schedule

• When will it start
• How long will it take
• Time breakdown for each step of the proposal

Cost or Budget

• Direct Costs
• Indirect Costs
• Complete Breakdown showing all Computations
• People Travel supplies
• When and how will you bill your client
• Income/Expense statement

Market Analysis

• Competitors
• Where your clients fit
• What type of market share you believe your proposed idea can secure
• Inventory
• Workforce
• Plans to market recommendations
• SWOT

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance its Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Proposals Part 4 (Solution)

Often I have seen people struggling with drafting proposals, so I have gone ahead and laid some points which one can keep in one's mind while dealing with this task 

This is the 4th part of the series

Proposed Solution 

• Description of how your service is different
• Specialized support services
• Overall benefits of the proposal plan

Methods

• Reference related studies
• Quote individuals who are prominent in the field
• Provide Statistics
• Identify steps taken for primary research
• Provide activities in the study
• Describe the questionnaire development

Goals Objectives Benefits and Outcomes

• The Goals of your proposal
• Your understanding of the organization and its problems
• What needs will be met
• How will they be measured
• How much money will be saved
• What non-tangibles will be impacted
• Benefits the clients will achieve
• Direct Benefits
• Indirect Benefits

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance its Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Proposals Part 3 (Pre-Drafting & Discussions)

Often I have seen people struggling with drafting proposals, so I have gone ahead and laid some points which one can keep in one's mind while dealing with this task 

This is the 3rd part of the series

• Breaking a proposal into many time sections is easier
• Scoring Charts : To Let know how the proposal will be evaluated
• Review Chart -  Checklist

History and Mission Statement

1. How long you have been in existence
2. Your mission or vision statement
3. General work of the organization
4. What you excel at
5. Any awards you won
6. SWOT
7. Similar projects
8. Anything else to sell your credibility

Current situation and background

• Explain the need you've identified
• Current Situation
• Why it needs to Change
• Ideas that have been tried

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance its Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Proposals Part 2 (What you need to do !)

Often I have seen people struggling with drafting proposals, so I have gone ahead and laid some points which one can keep in one's mind while dealing with this task

This is the 2nd part of the series

In RFP's 

1. Look for key phrases
2. Make an outline of the lettered sections
3. Make sticky notes
4. Brainstorm who should do what'
5. Reorder the section

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance its Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Proposals Part 1 (Guidelines & Inclusions)

Often I have seen people struggling with drafting proposals, so I have gone ahead and laid some points which one can keep in one's mind while dealing with this task 

This is the 1st part of the series

I will try to post a new section every week.

Common Guidelines :

• Focus on readers needs
• Includes precise description of service
• Include Market analysis
• Describe experience of your key players
• Financials

What they need to Include :

• What's the course of action
• How much will it cost
• Benefits of accepting
• Easy to read Information

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance its Sales / Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

KPIs - If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.

My two favorite decision support sayings are
1. “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” 
2. “Information without action is useless.”

These two sayings have been adopted for business, and is fundamental to understanding the importance of KPIs (key performance indicators). Developing and improving KPIs is the number one strategic action for growth.

For field-based organizations, KPIs are even more important. They are fundamental to evaluating field rep performance, allowing you to determine which reps are doing well and which may need help. Since reps do not work in an office, managers need to be able to see rep activity in the field and monitor performance.

KPIs also help you evaluate your business performance and see which areas you may need to work on. By using them, you can maximize your company’s efficiency and productivity. KPIs may vary from company to company, but they should all be simple, aligned, relevant, measurable, achievable, timely, and visible in order for them to be effective. 

Collecting data from KPIs merely gives you numbers. In order to understand each KPI and its impact on your business, you need to analyze this information. With cloud solutions like Salesforce & other mobile applications, it’s easy to analyze your data. So if KPIs are monitored frequently and analyzed often, it is easy to see areas in which your business performance may be lacking in comparison to others. After analyzing, you can reallocate your resources as needed and change your strategy to better fit your business objectives.

KPIs can be the key to increased business productivity, efficiency, and growth, but only if you measure them frequently and take the steps to analyze and adjust them because raw data can give you insight, but upon analysis, you will find that you will gain much deeper insights that will aid you in improving your business.

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Best PMO ROI metrics

Field Enablement sometimes involves working closely with the PMO for measuring project efficiency thus making it necessary for the PMO to establish their own metrics to show the PMO’s contribution to the success of the company. Typical ROI metrics that the PMO use include:

• Percent of projects using/following the system/framework
• Ratio of project manager to total project staff
• Customer satisfaction ratings
• Year-over-year throughput
• Percent of projects at risk or in trouble
• Number of projects per headcount (staffing tolerance for projects)
• Ways to improve faster closure
• Percent of scope changes per project
• Percentage of projects completed on time
• Percentage of projects completed within budget

It is important to understand that metrics management is an essential component of knowledge management and involvement by the PMO is essential. It is very difficult to improve processes and work flow without gathering metrics and storing the results for traceability.

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

KPI Library methodology

Getting back to Field Effectiveness, nowadays companies maintain metric and KPI libraries the same way that they maintain libraries for best practices and lessons learned. The key is to use a methodology or framework.Firstly identifying the clients and stakeholders, we then input the requirements,business case, and accompanying assumptions.The methodology then guides us through the different process groups of initiation ,planning ,execution ,monitoring and controlling ,and closure .The methodology also provides us with guidance in the identification of metrics, KPIs and dashboard reporting techniques for a particular client.

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Causes of Failure in a Sales Support Project

Before starting a project I usually try to take a mental note of the causes of failure in a project, some of them are issues that could persist throughout the duration of the contract. So I have compiled a generic list of common causes of failure that I have encountered that I keep my eye out for !, They are :

• End user stakeholders not involved throughout the project. (My biggest Gripe !)
• Minimal or no stakeholder backing; lack of ownership.
• Weak business case.
• Plan asks for too much in too little time.
• Poor estimates, especially financial.
• Unclear stakeholder requirements.
• Passive user stakeholder involvement after hand-off.
• Unclear expectations.
• Assumptions, if they exist at all, are unrealistic.
• Plans are based upon insufficient data.
• No systematization of the planning process.
• Inadequate or incomplete requirements.
• Lack of resources.
• Assigned resources lack experience.
• Staffing requirements are not fully known.
• Constantly changing resources.
• Poor overall project planning.
• Missed deadlines and no recovery plan.
• Budgets are exceeded and out of control.
• Lack of re-planning on a regular basis.
• Lack of attention provided to the human and organizational aspects of the project.
• Project estimates are best guesses and not based upon history or standards.
• Not enough time provided for proper estimating.
• No one knows the exact major milestone dates or due dates for reporting.
• Team members working with conflicting requirements.
• People are shuffled in and out of the project with little regard for the schedule.
• Each stakeholder uses different tools, which be incompatible with the tools of project partners.
• Weak project and stakeholder communications
• Poor assessment of risks if done at all.
• Wrong type of contract.
• Poor project management; team members possess a poor understanding of project management, especially virtual team members.
• Technical objectives are more important than business objectives.

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Defining Complexity

Having been a part of meetings where level of complexity of a given project is often discussed, I prefer to usually clarify my stand by mentioning that complexity can be defined according to the number of interactions that must take place for the work to be executed. The greater the number of functional units that must interact, the harder it is to perform the integration. The situation becomes more difficult if the functional units are dispersed across the globe and if cultural differences makes integration difficult. Complexity can also be defined according to size and length. The larger the project is in scope and cost, and the greater the time frame, the more likely it is that scope changes will occur significantly, affecting the budget and schedule. Large, complex projects tend to have large cost overruns and schedule slippages. Complex projects can differ from traditional projects for a multitude of reasons, including:

◾ Size
◾ Dollar value
◾ Uncertain requirements
◾ Uncertain scope
◾ Uncertain deliverables
◾ Complex interactions
◾ Uncertain credentials of the labor pool
◾ Use of large virtual teams
◾ Other miscellaneous differences

There are numerous definitions of a complex project, based upon the interactions of two or more of the preceding elements. Even a small, two-month project can be considered complex according to the definition. This can create havoc when selecting and using metrics. The projects that you manage within your own company can be regarded as complex projects if the scope is large and the statement of work is only partially complete so before starting a project just try to thrash out this important issue as well, wherever required.

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Points on Proposal Development

Often I hear Business Development Managers cribbing about Proposal development which can be quite a headache and prospective clients giving them a hard time, so I have gone ahead and placed some important pints on a list to help you differentiate you from your competitor by mentioning :

1. Track record 
2. Awards
3. Endorsements
4. Incumbent
5. Patent technologies
6. Influence
7. Size
8. Partnerships

I use a set of Microsoft Excel templates to do track these.

So start this process by :

Identify each strength, for example size and see:

Where this can be flipped around so that it becomes a disadvantage.

For example, size can imply inflexibility and red-tape. You can highlight your nimble work force and the speed of response. You can then work through all of the strengths and write your bid so that:

Each ‘strength’ is identified - but the risks are flagged next to it. You then show how you would resolve these and build trust in the proposal assessor’s mind.

Each ‘strength’ is identified - but the issues are discussed next to it. You then show how issues may arise if the grant provider chooses a larger firm and why selecting your firm may be a safer option. 

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Identifying Your Competitors Strengths

The usual way to go about analyzing Competitor strength is to go ahead and build a SWOT analysis starting with the strengths and moving into the weaknesses.The key point here is that you need to reduce whatever anxiety the client has with your firm. Go through each objection they may have and show how you are a safer bet and are more likely to deliver the goods, ahead of schedule.
 
Usually the client gets a good feeling once he knows that the seller understands his problem
So if you help the client see where they could go wrong with other applicants, then that helps us reduce the number of applicants. Write to reduce the assessor’s anxiety. Once you tailor your material in this way, your success rate will increase dramatically.

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

The Solution Approval & Review Meeting(SOAR) - Points to remember

Often I have seen people feel overtly cocky about the SOAR meet and then get shot down in a couple of seconds, so in order to prevent the sort of disasters that SOAR meets can be, I have laid down some important points which can be followed to ensure your proposal has a fighting chance to succeed

• Analyze thoroughly the Approval process
• Try to engage people before for a informal talk to gauge the mood and also form alliances
• Prepare, prepare, prepare & prepare - The single most important thing to consider
• Position it for your audience to help them convince them of their benefits
• Keep it simple
• Answer questions with confidence

Do:

• Meet with important stakeholders in advance of needing their formal approval
• Position your idea in terms of the benefits your audience stands to gain
• Answer questions concisely and confidently

Don’t:

• Assume that your audience will believe it’s a good idea just because you do
• Overwhelm your audience with detailed analysis or specifics
• Get defensive or angry when people challenge your idea

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Guidelines for Modelling

The best advice/guidelines that I usually lay down for a modelling process especially a client facing data model is as follows :

•  Model should be iterative
•  Model should be dynamic
•  It should be economical in data
•  It should be economical in its views
•  Concepts should be clear and recognized
•  Model structure should be clear and recognized
•  Models should be consistent to previously available models ie. -  if they exist
•  Try and make models as correct and complete as required
•  The different concerns/viewpoints regarding the components should be treated orthogonally rather than in a scattered manner.

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Basic Modelling Activities

As real life modelling is usually not linear and tends to be highly interactive, I have often tried to detail the activities involved in a modelling process, some of them are explained as follows :

1. Establishing the purpose, scope and focus- What part of reality will be described (Mine usually consists of three categories - conservative,normal, optimistic
- What aspects will be described - (probably the features of the product)
- What level of detail will be available - (Very important aspect as a lot of detail tends to confuse people...;-))
2.Selecting one or more viewpoints
3.Creating and structuring the model- Enterprise architecture to be used/not used ?
- Can you elicit and add additional info if you need
- Based upon the available information  you then engineer a model
- Or you can create a model via a visual representation
4. Visualizing/Using/Testing the model- Validation.Obtaining Commitment (The hardest part, so be ready to fight it out !)
- Informing the other stakeholders
5. Maintaining the model

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

The Zachman Framework - Helping define perspective

Whenever asked to advise on a framework that helps project an ideal set of rules and architecture for the management of complex IT products, I have always recommended the Zachman Framework as it helps define how perspectives are related according to certain rules or abstractions and also the schema of the architecture

All in all It allows different people in the team to look at the same thing from different perspectives. This helps create a holistic view of the environment, an important capability illustrated in this figure provided by zachman

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Rational Unified Process chart

When asked to explain the schedule and the timelines for a given project, I have often relied on the RUP process chart to explain the entire schedule as it provides a disciplined approach to assigning tasks and responsibilities . The obvious goal is to ensure the production of high-quality tools that meets the needs of its end-users, within a predictable schedule and budget. 

The product life-cycle is broken into four cycles, each cycle working on a new generation of the product
• Inception phase  - Here you just establish the business case for the system and delimit the project scope. 
• Elaboration phase - Usually the elaboration phase is used to analyze the problem domain, establish a sound architectural foundation, develop the project plan, and eliminate the highest risk elements of the project.
• Construction phase - This basically is a engineering process where emphasis is placed on managing resources and controlling operations to optimize costs, schedules, and quality
• Transition phase - The purpose of the transition phase is to transition the software product to the user community. This involves clearing bugs updating new releases, finishing up some features

Shown below is a chart that helps (courtesy Wikipedia)

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Include Cash Flow Balances/ Projections of the company in the Business Plan ?

This is one of the questions that have often cropped up while discussing the business plan with the sales team. My personal opinion to them, is to always include cash flow Balances/Projections  in the Business plan because it acts as an ingredient that helps project the fact that our business operates smoothly.

Also by a lot of people often mistakenly believe that a cash flow documents will show the profitability of a project. Although closely related, these cash flow and profitability are different. A cash flow statement lists cash inflows and cash outflows while the income statement lists income and expenses. A cash flow statement shows liquidity while an income statement shows profitability.

However if you believe that the business plan/Presentation is getting too lengthy and boring you can always cut that element with a one-liner stating your stability and your YOY (Year on Year) Financial profitability numbers and that should also do the trick for you.

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Opportunity Assessment Framework

There is a need to effectively assess opportunities so that they can be managed effectively, in order to do that we had to often classify an opportunity into three categories.

1. Company Business Goals - This is a category that evaluates if the opportunity builds brand awareness, increases revenues, lower operational investments or helps us in cross selling across the divisions
2. Impact on the Client & the Software/Services Industry : It usually covers factors associated with customer satisfaction and our industry standing to increase our market share
3. Competitive Stance : This evaluates if this opportunity is a medium for us to enter the market/leapfrog/or attain par with competition. A second point should assess the window of the opportunity that is available for us to exploit 

With all this you could also add framework aspects which contribute towards customer loyalty, Supply or demand constraints, your team's delivery record, or any other aspect that you may find useful to your particular organization.

 If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Alternative Business Case Report (Roadmap)

Areas where Business Value can be quantified

Business value is a critical component that needs to be projected effectively, in order to do that I have gone ahead and compiled a list of areas where they can be explored, Although some of them can be a little tricky to quantify, but then this is something that needs to be discussed with your marketing / Solutions/ Finance/ Leadership  teams to see if they have any data to support the claims.

1.    Corporate

• Results oriented  company
• Brand Differential
• Innovative Products
• Error free products
• Ease of Doing Business

 2.    Marketing

• Brand Differentiation
• Product Solutions
• Strong Distributor’s
• Strategic Alliances
• Exceptional Service

3.    Operations

• Agile Capacity
• Low cost Products
• Error free Products
• Supply Chain
• Ease of Doing Business

4.    Information Systems

• E-Commerce Capability
• Project Management
• Service and Reliability
• Supply Chain
• Flexible Systems

5.    Human Resources

• Results oriented  company
• Leadership Depth
• Personal Growth
• HR Expertise
• People Capacity

6.    Finance

• Streamlined Finance
• Fiscal Insight
• Analytic Capability
• Financial Information
• Cost Management

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Software Demonstration Stages (Terms)

Although this is something that appears to quite a basic accepted practice across all software & service companies, but I am just mentioning this since I found out that a ot of Sales reps are not aware of this so let's get that cleared !

The way we see it, there are three categories or levels of demos (or "software experiences" that go by the name of demo):

Stage 1: The overview : This is the stage where you educate the prospect by providing him with information about what your company does and and what your software or service solves. The delivery mechanism usually involves power-point presentation and videos. Here your prospects don't actually operate the software — they just watch it !!

Stage 2: The Details : This stage involves in showing your prospect detailed functionality of your software. This is sometimes unguided (e.g., you let the user download a sample or presentation), and this is sometimes carefully scripted and managed (e.g., an in-person or Web-based step-by-step walk-through of your product).

Stage 3: The Trial Version (Optional) : Now some companies may offer this sort, where a sample version is released or a standardized version is released to the prospect so that they might experience, The client usually pays for the consulting and installation, However you may want to forgo the license fees in anticipation of a larger roll-out. Usually this is the the stage where your company plays the coach 

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Due Diligence Analysis Model

Before any sale, we should ensure that steps should be taken to secure the best value in any deal. This is a vital element before contemplating any transaction. We usually tend to use very basic due diligence models which allow us to assess the potential clients in terms of their financial health and how they may contribute towards our growth

Usually while designing a Due Diligence scorecard we take into account the following factors
1. Financial Performance
2. Brand Value
3. Business Conditions
4. Prospects for the Future
5. Client Organization
6. Competitive Environment
7. Quality of Assets
8. Structure of purchase transaction
9. Other Critical Risks

These 9 factors can be subdivided into many more factors which can be assigned specific weight-ages which would contribute to the final rating that can be assigned to the client

All this is based upon financial & Legal documentation, Insurance Policies,Research, Press Releases, Intellectual properties & Strategic Agreements

If you want some perspective on how you or your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Activity Based Cost Model (ABC Model)

Often to understand and figure out answers to questions like :
1. What is the true costs of the services we are providing to our clients?
2. How much should we charge clients for the cost of our services?
3. What are low and high priority activities in terms of funding

I usually tend to prefer using the ABC model, as the this type of model helps us allocate costs in an effective manner. This model is based on the principle that activities incur costs through the consumption of resources.

This type of modeling uses a two step process to allocate costs:

Step 1: You have to pull actual costs (what was spent) per the most reliable source, such as the General Ledger. Once you have identified the actual costs, then you have to determine how to allocate all of these costs (resources) to the activities that are performed by the department (or what-ever domain you are building the model towards). Labor costs are typically allocated by looking at the percentage of time people spend on various activities.

Step 2: Once you understand the costs by activities, then you need to allocate these costs to your cost objects (such as the different service lines you perform for customers). For example, the number of help desk tickets processed is an output driver to allocate costs from the help desk activity to help desk support costs.

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Sales Automation

Field effectiveness can be enhanced by focusing on automating certain tasks which in most cases I have found to be a drain on salesperson’s resources. I have seen that time spent on these activities often take up valuable time leading to salespeople getting frustrated, such tools would increase selling productivity and, at the same time, lower selling costs. 

I have gone ahead and identified certain tasks that help us in achieving the main objective. I will focus on tools that support such tasks by giving screenshots and samples in some of my future articles (also when I have more time to write in detail on that …;-))).

Some of the tasks that can be easily automated are:

• Reducing the amount of time a salesperson devotes to administrative tasks such as the preparation of call reports.
• Tracking sales leads.
• Managing time and territory
• Developing proposals and persuasive presentations

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Campaign ROI Reporting

Sales Leaders are usually under a lot of pressure to justify their marketing expenditures. Knowing that a campaign generated a certain number of leads is interesting but it doesn't help justify the marketing campaign expense therefore I have noticed that knowing a Campaign ROI makes a difference as it helps him understand if the Campaign is giving results or not!!. Usually first you have to identify the key success criteria that you want to focus on, for eg :

1. Total revenue,
2. Upsell revenue,
3. Percentage increase in revenue / percentage of new customers.

Then as you complete your marketing campaigns you'll be able to score the success of each campaign against your predefined success criteria using metrics that involve the following different stages:

•    Marketing deliverable
•    Prospect response
•    Lead capture
•    Lead qualification
•    Lead acceptance
•    Conversion.

Just make sure that you establish a success criterion for each of the steps in your marketing process.

All this while simultaneously calculating your campaigns' performance by return on investment (ROI) and average cost. For each campaign in the report: ROI, which is expressed as a percentage,it is usually calculated as the net gain (Total Value Won Opportunities - Actual Cost) divided by the Actual Cost.

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Components of a Project Feasibility report for a deal

Most of the Project Feasibility reports that I have created for the various deals that I have supported have used the following components mentioned below , which have sufficiently covered all aspects of the requirements of the prospective client in one report.

1. Cost of Implementation: Includes total costs all broken down into the fixed. Variable and other components – Operational Costs,  Projected Revenue & Projected Viability i.e. (Surplus  / Deficit)
2. Cost Derivation Method: Includes basic details and  also some extra details like if an escalation is required and what is the % increase required.
3. Value Assessment: Has details of the % of the returns it will give i.e  ROI, Also should have details if the cost & revenue is optimistic/moderate/conservative
4. Job Creation: An important aspect on how many jobs will be created (please remove if performance enhancing software)
5. Demand/Need for Software : Quite an essential component
6. Appropriateness Assessment: Is the project considered appropriate in terms of project type, cost and beneficiary need, as a seller for us it is usually a big “YES”.with all the details. ;-)
7. Sustainability Assessment :  Should include details on sustainability of the project

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Sales Pay-out Modeling

Just like the design process the modeling is also based upon the goals the company wants to achieve. For eg : What is the payout under various situations: below budget, at budget and above budget? ,Is the plan capped or uncapped?, Does the commission rate increase after the company reaches various performance levels?

Payout modeling is intended to ward off the effects of ‘unintended consequences.” You do not want to design a plan to reward a specific performance outcome only to have people act in a totally different manner.

Once things are cleared you can then refer to the basic engineering of the model which reflects in the screenshot below

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Sales Incentive Plan Effectiveness Checklist

As a Business Analyst one of my tasks was to support & design the Incentive plan for the Sales /Client management population I was advised to keep the following checklist in mind while providing support to the design project. This check list can also help identify issues and problems with the existing sales compensation plan.

1. The sales incentive plan must support the marketing strategy and the long-term continuity of the sales force.
2. If the Return on Investment is negative or marginal the program should be reevaluated.
3. Tactical issues usually revolve around avoiding the following:

• Over or underpaying the sales force
• Ignoring new business development
• Resisting management and “doing my own thing”
• Gaming the goal-setting process

The checklist indicates issues & problems with the incentive plan that need further analysis before a new plan can be modeled and then effectively implemented.

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com

Sales Incentive Plan Design Process

I have found that most of the design process revolves around some specific goals like increasing revenue, increase retention, increase in market share etc. etc.. , so the design process usually are based upon the goals and the targets that the leadership want to achieve.

The  usual Sales Compensation  plan design process goes as follows

Step 1 : Evaluate Business Economic Value Drivers
Step 2 : Analyze Current Plan Effectiveness
Step 3 Part A. Determine Pay Strategy
Step 3. Part B Plan Design
Step 4. Payout Modeling
Step 5 Administrative Guidelines and Communication

If you want some perspective on how you or  your company needs to enhance their Sales/Client Management Capabilities, please email me at shubhanjan.saha@gmail.com