Medical Tourism and its Potential for Developing Countries
The Emerging Phenomenon of Medical Tourism An emerging trend in healthcare management is the phenomenon of medical tourism or the mixing of tourism with visits for medical treatment. This medical tourism has become popular in recent years mainly because of the fact that healthcare has become prohibitively expensive in the West and as the Eastern […]
Continuous Improvement and Business Process Re-Engineering
Polar opposite to the concept of Business Process Re-Engineering is the concept of continuous improvement. It was developed by the Japanese after World War-2. Whilst BPR relies on radical change, lean management relies on small incremental change. It stems from Japanese term called “Kaizen” which means small improvement. The concept relies on successive small improvements […]
Contract Logistics Cost Model
Warehousing Costing methods vary with the business models. While some warehouses using common shared facilities may be worked up based on transaction costs, dedicated and stand alone facilities would be on a different costing model. In this section, we shall go through the cost elements of a warehouse project briefly. Warehouse Cost elements are primarily […]
Productivity and Its Role in Shaping Economies and Businesses
Introduction: Productivity and Its Centrality to Growth We often hear the term productivity in many contexts and whether you are a student or a working professional, you are constantly exhorted to be more productive. In recent years, the dictum that do not work hard, but Work Smart, is often used by many of the opinion […]
Shapes of Data and Characteristics of Shape
The shape of the data determines the type of tools that can be used to draw conclusions from it. Here is how to graphically plot out the data to find its shape: Step 1: Plot Data into Categories To begin with, the data must be divided into equal categories. The categories must have equal intervals […]
Sales support systems were developed to assist the sales force in improving productivity. This improvement in productivity was through continuous communication with the field offices about customer activities and requirements. The sales force focus was on cultivating long and fruitful customer relation.
Before the advent of information system, customer-related information was recorded in individual sales representative’s personal books rather than on a centralized data center. This meant that the customer information would be lost with movement of sales representative.
Therefore, to preserve and utilized customer relation and improve performance of sales force, sales support system was developed.
A sales support system can be divided into:
This module of the sales support system looks at offering calendar based activities to plan and coordinate meetings with customer relationship accounts. The module looks at consolidating team activities for a given period of time. The module provides in-depth analysis of the historical and current sales cycle.
Sales force racks up into team member and team member into the sales manager. Therefore, sales manager has to monitor activities of more than one sales team. This module helps sales manager generate reports, which provide data point around current sale activities performed by the different sales team. This module helps sales force connect with various product specialists based out of various sales office locations. Territory-wise pipeline management becomes easy for the sales manager.
One of the important needs of sales force and sales team is management of various contact points across different organization. Contact management module should be able to organize contact across current and potential client organization.
Sales force work relentlessly to generate a sales lead. Lead management module provides management of leads, which come through marketing campaigns and referral management. This module also tracks characteristics of each lead as to highlight other possible leads.
Every organization has distinctive and varied product requirement. It is important for the sales force to have ready access to different product configuration and associated price. This module facilitates configuration support.
The modern information system can hold large volume of data, which can be effectively converted into information.
Advent of the Internet has simplified sales force access to centralized databases. It helps sales force stay in touch with each other as well as sales manager. Availability of the Internet has reduced the cost of managing communication. Mobile devices have further contributed to proliferation sales support system.
Another aspect of sales is after sales product support. Organizations have on-site or field service staff. The Internet has made field service management possible on a real-time basis.
Sales support system enhances productivity and efficiency of the sales force. The sales force remains aware of development around the potential clients on a real-time basis. This increases probability of closing a sales deal. The productive sales force not only increases market share but also improves profitability of organization.
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Communication Systems and Groupware – Information System Concepts that Apply in All Functional Areas of Business
February 12, 2025
