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Business Scenario for Target Account Selling

This scenario provides an example of the business process performed by a sales manager using the Target Account Selling (TAS) methodology. Your company may follow a different process according to its business requirements.

A sales representative meets with a customer and discovers a new opportunity. The sales representative plans to use the Target Account Selling (TAS) methodology from Siebel MultiChannel Services (MCS) to develop a sales strategy for this new deal. TAS is supported by his Siebel Sales application, allowing the sales representative to analyze the opportunity and its multiple decision makers.

Opportunity Assessment

The sales representative selects the opportunity within Siebel Sales, and navigates to the Target Account Selling views to begin the process. He sees several views that he can use to profile and assess the opportunity, develop his value proposition and competitive strategy, and create a detailed action plan to achieve his goals.

He begins by developing an overview of the opportunity. He enters some high-level information, including a profile of the account and the opportunity. This information provides strategic insight that his sales team can use and helps him to connect the project to the customer's business drivers. The sales representative also enters details about his goal for the opportunity, the solution he is offering, and the business value this solution provides. He continues by entering a description of the compelling event that is causing the customer to act. This helps him to determine the customer's sense of urgency to close the deal. He concludes by summarizing his high-level strengths and weaknesses for the deal.

Now that he has a general overview of the opportunity, he begins to assess his position using the TAS criteria that Siebel MCS has developed from analyzing the best practices of top sales professionals. He also rates the position of his key competitors using these criteria. He uses the TAS Coach on the Assessments screen to help him complete the assessment. The assessment helps him qualify the opportunity and understand his company's position in the deal.

Competitive and Relationship Strategy Development

Next, the sales representative begins to analyze his competitors for the opportunity and to determine what strategy he should use to win the deal. He uses the TAS Coach, available from the Competitive Analysis screen, for competitive strategy recommendations.

He continues by analyzing the prospect's organization. He maps both the formal and informal structures so that he can be sure he is spending time with the right contacts. When he completes the analysis, he views the organizational chart that summarizes his assessment and identifies key players and relationships he can use to close the deal.

Now that he knows who to talk to, the sales representative begins to develop a relationship strategy. He enters the business and personal agenda, as well as key decision issues, for each contact. This preparation helps him to determine what message to deliver to each contact.

Strategy Execution

The sales representative is now prepared to develop his action plan to win the opportunity. First, he navigates to the Customer Milestones view to document key events or milestones in the customer's buying process. This view helps him plan the activities that he and his sales team should take to address the customer's requirements at each milestone. Then, he enters key action steps and resources needed and assigns the actions to members of his sales team. He can choose to have the activities appear in his calendar, activities, or to-do list, or in those of another assignee. He navigates to the PRIME Activities view where he can see all the activities he created to meet customer milestones, as well as add action items required to win the deal. He also makes some additional notes about the opportunity and makes the notes available for the entire team to view.

The sales representative's manager requests a copy of the TAS Opportunity Plan. The sales representative configures the report to display relevant sections of the Opportunity Plan, generates the report, and then emails it to his manager.


 Siebel Sales User Guide 
 Published: 18 April 2003