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Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide > Managing Sales > Scenarios for Collaborative Selling >

Brand Owner Creates Opportunities and Brand Owner and Partner Work Together on Them

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In this scenario, opportunities are created by the brand owner company and assigned to specific partner sales agents who will work collaboratively on the opportunity with your sales agents.

This scenario is appropriate for you if you generate opportunities and you use partners' help in following up on opportunities. For example, you may generate opportunities through a national marketing campaign, and when you follow up on these opportunities, you may need help from partners who specialize in training or in systems integration.

This scenario consists of the following steps:

Step 1. The brand owner enters the opportunities.
Step 2. The brand owner assigns the opportunities to your sales agents.
Step 3. The brand owner assigns the opportunities to partners.
Step 4. The brand owner and partner work together on opportunities.

Step 1: The brand owner enters the opportunities

You may gather opportunities in a number of different ways, for example, at trade shows, through marketing campaigns, or through your Web site. The first step in working with an opportunity is to enter it into your Siebel application.

When you enter an opportunity through the Siebel Partner Manager, you are automatically added as the primary on the sales team.

For more information about opportunities, see the section on opportunities in Applications Administration Guide.

To enter a new opportunity

Navigate to the Opportunities screen.
In the Opportunities list, click the menu button, then click New Record to add a new record to that list.
Enter information about the opportunity in the new record.

Step 2: The brand owner assigns opportunities to brand owner sales agents

After you enter the opportunity, it must be assigned to the appropriate sales agent at your company. To assign an opportunity to a sales agent, you enter the employee's name in the Sales Team field of the Opportunity record. Then the opportunity will be visible in the My Opportunities view for that employee.

You can assign the opportunity manually, but it is best to use Siebel Assignment Manager to assign the opportunity by creating rules based on geography, partners' skills, expertise in a specific product, language ability, territory, workload and availability, or other criteria.

For more information about Siebel Assignment Manager, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.

Step 3: The brand owner assigns opportunities to partners

Next, opportunities are assigned to the appropriate partner. You can do this manually or using Siebel Assignment Manager to assign the opportunity by creating rules based on partners' skills, expertise in a specific product, language ability, territory, workload and availability, or other criteria.

You can assign opportunities to partners in two ways:

Assign opportunities to the partner company. To assign an opportunity to a partner company, you enter that company's organization in the Organization field of the Opportunity record. The opportunity will be visible in the All Opportunities view for that organization, but it will not be visible in the My Opportunities view for any employee of the organization. The partner company will have to designate an employee to find new opportunities in the All Opportunities view and assign them to the appropriate employee.
Assign opportunities to partner employees. To assign an opportunity to a partner employee, you enter the employee's name in the Sales Team field of the Opportunity record. If you do this, the opportunity will be visible in the My Opportunities view for that employee.

You can either assign the opportunities manually, or you can set up Assignment Manager to assign them automatically. Assignment Manager can add partner organizations to the opportunity's Organization field or add partner employees to the opportunity's Sales Team field.

It is usually difficult for you to keep track of the special skills of individual employees in partner companies, so it is more common to assign the opportunity to the partner company and have someone there assign it to the appropriate employee.

For more information about Siebel Assignment Manager, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.

Step 4: The brand owner and partners work together on opportunities

It is easier for you and the partner to work together on the lead, because both are on the sales team.

Whenever you display the My Opportunities view in the Siebel Partner Manager or the partner displays the My Opportunities view in the Siebel Partner Portal, the shared opportunity will be included in the list. You can select the Opportunity record and:

Share files. You and the partner can share files (such as Microsoft Word documents) that are useful for this opportunity by clicking the Attachments view tab and adding records to the Shared Attachments list.
Share activities. You and the partner can log your activities as you work on this opportunity by clicking the Activities view plan and adding records to the Activities list. You will always be current about each other's activities. You can also add future activities to the Activities view tab or add activity plans to the Activity Plans view tab for this opportunity, in order to invite other members of the sales team to work on these activities.
Share notes. You and your partner can share notes by adding activities to the opportunity and choosing the Note activity type.
Share revenue line items. As the partner sales agents learn more about the opportunity, they can add revenue line items to the opportunity, which indicate the potential revenue, chance of success, and sales stage. These will be visible to both partner companies.
Create customized sales tools. You can use the brand owner's prebuilt proposal, presentation, and correspondence templates to create proposals, presentations, and letters based on this opportunity, giving you selling tools that are automatically customized for this opportunity and account.

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