If you are in charge of sales territory management, you have probably been
approached by many consultants with what they call the “right” answer to your
very challenging problem.
There
are so many factors to consider and so many ways to upset your sales reps with
apparent inequity, not to mention reducing your productivity through mistakes
and repair delays. The ideal is to achieve realignment on a regular basis for
maximum productivity with minimum disruption. Does it make sense to analyze
your own complicated spreadsheet or perhaps to hire external specialists to
manage field force assignments?
The
latest advice is to create a field force alignment platform specific to your
company. You will need to input data from multiple sources—HR, CRM, ERP. Though
it may be labor-intensive on the front end, the resulting platform allows for
more rapid and frequent alignment as minor changes are made along the way. Once
the platform is in place, you have far more flexibility to adjust to market
changes, as well as personnel and customer changes. Downtime is reduced and
productivity (revenue) is increased.
