Managing Sales Data

This chapter provides an overview of sales data and discusses how to:

• Manage competitor data.

• Forecast sales revenue.

Understanding Sales Data

To be successful, a sales organization must have a comprehensive understanding of the outside forces that contribute to a customer's decision to do business with you. One of the strongest outside forces that can affect a sale is direct competition. If you understand what competitors can deliver, when they can deliver it, and for what price, you can compete effectively.

In addition to understanding the competition, you must also have a complete understating of your own organization, the amount of potential revenue that can be realized in the future, and the amount of demand that exists for your products in the marketplace. Using sales forecasts and sales pipelines, you can determine, with reasonable certainty, the amount of revenue that the organization will generate in the near future. You can also use this information to assist in demand forecasting for products, which enables you to better plan materials and inventory.

Managing Competitor Data

This section provides an overview of competitor data and discusses how to:

• Add a new competitor.

• Enter contact information for a competitor.

• Attach product information to a competitor.

• Add competitor opportunities.

• Set processing options for the Competitor Find Browse program (P90CA061).

• Set processing options for the Competitor Detail program (P90CA060).

Understanding Competitors

To effectively sell products and services, you must be able to demonstrate to potential customers why an organization's products and services are better than those of competing organizations. To accurately compare an organization against the competition, you must have an understanding of the products and services the competitors provide, their pricing structure, and their business processes.

Using the Competitor Find Browse program (P90CA061) and the Competitor Detail program (P90CA060), you can track information about competitors. You can attach products to competitor records, and enter information about those products, such as the competitor's price, shipment policies, special product features, or known defects and issues. When you enter a competitor into the system, these tables are updated:

• F90CA060

• F0101

• F0111

• F0116

• F0115

• F01161

• F01151

• F90CA06A

You can also associate a competitor with sales opportunities with which they might be involved. This enables the sales representatives to know who they are competing against when working on a sale. You can then view the pipeline for the competitor. The pipeline gives you an at-a-glance view of the potential revenue that is associated with the sales opportunities in which the organization is competing with a specific competitor.

Lastly, you can use category codes to enter and track information that is specific to the organization's needs. Because the type of competitor information that an organization might want to track varies greatly, we provide you with thirty user-defined category codes that you can configure to track information that is specific to the organization, and the competition. For example, you might want to track how long the competitor has been in business, whether the competitor attended specified marketing events, or if there are internal employees who have worked for the competitor. You can use category codes to track all of this information.

Important! In previous releases of the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Sales Force Automation system, competitor data was managed using the P6917901 program. As of release 8.11 SP1, you use the Competitor Find Browse program (P90CA061) and the Competitor Detail program (P90CA060) to manage competitor data.

Note. Be aware that category codes are used throughout the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne system. Therefore, you should work with a system administrator when configuring category code fields to determine which category codes are available for use.

Competitor Products

To fully understand the competition, you must know what they are selling, and what advantages or disadvantages they have when compared to your organization. To track this information, you can attach products to a competitor record, and you can add competitor-specific information to each product.

If your organization sells the same item, or a comparable item, you can attach your organization's item to the competitor record. This enables you to directly compare the competitor's products with the products in your organization that might best compete with the competitor's product.

For example, if your organization sells Widget A, and a competing organization also sells Widget A, you set up Widget A in the system once. You enter your organization's pricing information when you set up the item. You can then attach Widget A to the competitor record, and enter information that is specific to the competitor, such as the pricing the competitor is using when selling the item. Competitor-related item information is stored in the F90CA06A table, and does not affect the setup of the item for your organization.

You enter competitor-specific information about products using the Competitor Item Description and Extended Description fields. These fields are free-form text fields that you can use to hold any alphanumeric data about the competitor's products. Before you can attach a product to a competitor record, you must first create a product item.

Opportunities and Pipeline

Typically, sales representatives find themselves competing against other organizations to win a customer's business. Knowing the competition can be the biggest asset when it comes to closing a sale. If you find that a competitor organization is involved in a sales opportunity, you can associate the competitor with the opportunity.

By associating competitors with opportunity records, you provide sales team members with any easy way to determine which organizations they are competing against. The sales representatives can then look at any product or category code information that might assist them in gaining a competitive edge during the sales cycle. Besides knowing the customer, knowing the competition can be the single most important piece of information when trying to win a sale.

To associate a competitor with an existing opportunity, you access the opportunity record and attach the competitor to the opportunity. At times, you might want to create a new opportunity for a competitor. For example, you might find that one of your customers is working with a competitor organization to purchase products. Now that you are aware that the customer is in the market for the specified product, you might decide to contact them and try and sell them your product. You can create a new opportunity directly from the competitor record. You can then use this opportunity record to track all related sales information.

If you have associated competitors with existing opportunities, or you have added new opportunities to the competitor, you can view the competitor's pipeline. The pipeline displays, at a glance, the amount of potential revenue that the competitor can realize, or that your organization can lose, if the competitor wins the sales. Viewing the competitor's pipeline can also help an organization determine how strong the competition is in the marketplace.

See Also

Managing Sales Opportunities

Prerequisites

Forms Used to Manage Competitor Data

Adding a New Competitor

Access the Add Competitor form.

Entering Contact Information for a Competitor

Access the Manage <Competitor Name> form. Select the Competitor tab. Click the Addresses/Phones link.

Attaching Product Information to a Competitor

Access the Manage <Competitor Name> form. Select the Competitor tab. Click the Product link.

Competitor Item Description

Enter a brief description of the most important competitor-related information. The system displays text that you enter in this field on the Competitor tab of the Competitor - Manage <Competitor Name> form when you click the Product link. This description should give the sales representative the most important piece of information that they will need when trying to compete against this organization. For example, if you are aware that the competitor's product has a defect, you might enter DEFECT - handle breaks often in this field. Alternatively, you might want to display the competitor's price so the sales representative knows, at a glance, whether they can beat the competitor's price. The information that you enter in this field is stored in the F90CA06A table.

Extended Description

Click the link in this field to enter detailed information about the competitor's product. This is a free-form text field that enables you to enter any information that might assist the sales team when competing with this organization for sales of the specified product. The information that you enter in this field is stored in the F90CA06A table.

Adding Competitor Opportunities

Access the Add Opportunity form.

Complete the steps for entering an opportunity. With the exception of the method with which you access the Add Opportunity form, the steps to enter an opportunity for a competitor are the same as those you complete when entering an opportunity for your own organization.

Setting Processing Options for the Competitor Find Browse Program (P90CA061)

Processing options enable you to specify the default processing for programs and reports.

For programs, you can specify options such as the default values for specific transactions, whether fields appear on a form, and the version of the program that you want to run.

For reports, processing options enable you to specify the information that appears on reports. For example, you set a processing option to include the fiscal year or the number of aging days on a report.

Do not modify JD Edwards EnterpriseOne demo versions, which are identified by ZJDE or XJDE prefixes. Copy these versions or create new versions to change any values, including the version number, version title, prompting options, security, and processing options.

Defaults

These processing options specify default settings that are used to process competitor information.

Versions

These processing options specify default versions that are used to process competitor information.

Setting Processing Options for the Competitor Application Program (P90CA060)

Processing options enable you to specify the default processing for programs and reports.

For programs, you can specify options such as the default values for specific transactions, whether fields appear on a form, and the version of the program that you want to run.

For reports, processing options enable you to specify the information that appears on reports. For example, you set a processing option to include the fiscal year or the number of aging days on a report.

Do not modify JD Edwards EnterpriseOne demo versions, which are identified by ZJDE or XJDE prefixes. Copy these versions or create new versions to change any values, including the version number, version title, prompting options, security, and processing options.

Warning! The Competitor Find Browse program is hard-coded to call Version ZJDE0001 of the Competitor Application program. Therefore, you should use the ZJDE0001 version and you should not create additional versions of this program. You can change the values in the processing options of the ZJDE0001 version.

If you must create a version other than ZJDE0001, you must modify the Competitor Find Browse program to call the newly-created version. Contact the system administrator or Oracle technical support for additional information.

Defaults

These processing options specify default settings that are used to process competitor information.

Versions

These processing options specify default versions that are used to process competitor information.

Forecasting Sales Revenue

This section provides overviews of sales forecasts, lists a prerequisite, and discusses how to:

• Create a sales forecast.

• Associate opportunities with a forecast.

• Set processing options for the Manage Forecasts program (P90CB060).

Understanding Sales Forecasts

To successfully manage the business, you must be able to forecast, or estimate with reasonable certainty, the amount of business that the organization will close in the upcoming months. Using the Manage Forecasts program (P90CB060), you can create sales forecasts that can help you project what the organization's sales will be.

Sales forecasts enable you to review the amount of potential revenue for a specified group of opportunities. You can specify search criteria, and then click the Generate button to automatically generate a group of opportunities. You can enter any of these search criteria to generate the list of opportunities:

• Opportunity Type

• Sales Team/Sales Team Member.

  You can enter the address book number of a sales team or sales team member. The system searches for opportunities that include the specified address book number on the sales team:

• Industry

  The system searches for opportunities whose associated Sold To customer record includes the specified industry.

• Close Date

  The system searches for opportunities whose close date falls within the specified date range.

• Probability

  The system searched for opportunities whose probability is greater than or equal to the value that you enter in the Probability field.

You can also manually select opportunities to add to the forecast. For example, you might want to create a sales forecast that includes all of the opportunities that are associated with a particular customer. Therefore, you can search for, and assign opportunities to the forecast based on the customer number. If necessary, you can also remove opportunities from the forecast.

Lastly, you create a combined list of system-generated and manually-selected opportunities to create a sales forecast. However, if you click the Generate button after you manually add opportunities to the list, the system regenerates the list according to the current search criteria, and all manual changes are lost.

When you create a sales forecast, the system calculates the amount of potential revenue for the selected opportunities. The system calculates the revenue amount for each selected opportunity by multiplying the opportunity's probability by the value in either the Line Item Total or the Potential Amount field. You specify which field is used in the processing options of the Manage Forecasts program. The system then totals the calculated revenue for the selected opportunities and populates the Revenue field. If necessary, you can override this amount by entering an amount in the Override Revenue field.

If you feel that the forecast is an accurate depiction of upcoming sales, you can specify that the forecast should be included in demand forecasting by selecting the Approve for Demand Management option. The organization's manufacturing department can then run the SCBM Outbound Processor program (R34A700) which provides them with information in one of these formats, depending on how the program's processing options are set:

• Information about all opportunities that meet the selection criteria.

• Information about all opportunities that are associated with any sales forecast with the Approve for Demand Management option selected.

• Information about all opportunities that are associated with a frozen sales forecast with the Approve for Demand Management option selected.

  See the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Advanced Planning Systems documentation on the Oracle customer Web site.

After you create, review, and, if necessary, update a sales forecast, you can freeze the forecast. When you freeze the forecast, the system disables all of the information on the forecast so that it cannot be changed. The system also creates a point-in-time snapshot of the forecast. The snapshot includes the associated opportunities, as they are at the time the forecast is frozen. If these opportunities change after the forecast is frozen, the snapshot does not change, which provides you with an audit trail of the actual data that was used to create the forecast.

For example, you might create a forecast for Employee A for the month of August. The forecast includes an opportunity with a large amount of potential revenue. You freeze the forecast. After the forecast is frozen, the large opportunity is lost. At the end of the month, you determine that Employee A's actual revenue was far less than the forecasted amount. When you review the forecast, you can see all of the opportunities that were active at the time the forecast was frozen. These opportunity records appear as they were at the time the forecast was frozen. You can then compare the forecast opportunity records against the current records for these same opportunities to determine the cause of the revenue discrepancy.

This graphic illustrates forecast creation:

Creating forecasts

When you create a sales forecast, the system creates records in these tables:

• F90CB060

• F90CB06A

• F90CB060Z

When you freeze a forecast, the system deletes the record in the F90CB06A table and creates records in these tables:

• F90CB06B

• F90CB06C

Forecast Dates

When you create a new sales forecast, the system automatically populates the date range fields to encompass one month, using the system date as the From Date. You can change the dates if you want to create a forecast for a different period of time.

Revenue Calculation Methods

Sales forecasts include the amount of potential revenue that an organization can expect to generate from a selected group of opportunities during the specified date range. Using the processing options for the Manage Forecasts program, you specify how the system calculates revenue amounts. You can use any of these methods:

• Calculate forecast revenue based on the Potential Revenue field from opportunities.

• Calculate forecast revenue based on the Line Item Total field from opportunities.

• Enter the revenue amount on the forecast.

If you use the Potential Revenue field, the system multiplies the probability of each selected opportunity by the value in the Potential Revenue field. The system then adds these amounts for all of the selected opportunities together and populates the Revenue field with the total.

If you use the Line Item Total field, the system multiplies the probability of each selected opportunity by the value in the Line Item Total field. The system then adds these amounts for all of the selected opportunities together and populates the Revenue field with the total.

Lastly, you can enter a revenue amount directly on the sales forecast. If you enter an amount in the Override Revenue field, the system uses the override value instead of the calculated value, when creating the forecast.

Understanding Sales Pipelines

You can use sales pipelines to help you forecast the amount of revenue that is associated with active sales opportunities. Active sales opportunities are those that have a probability greater than zero and less than 100. You can review the sales pipeline for these entities:

• Employees

• Customers

• Contacts

• Competitors

• Forecasts

• Territories

• Industry Groupings

Prerequisite

To view pipeline amounts, you must have active opportunities in the system. An active opportunity is one with a probability greater than zero and less than 100.

See Managing Sales Opportunities.

Forms Used to Forecast Sales Revenue

Creating a Sales Forecast

Access the Add Forecast form.

After you have completed this information, click Save and Continue, and proceed to the next task to complete the sales forecast.

Associating Opportunities with a Forecast

Access the Forecast - Manage <Forecast Name> Forecast form. Select the Sales tab. Click the Opportunity link.

To associate opportunities with a forecast:

1. Enter a date range.

   The system includes the opportunities with a close date that falls within the date range that you specify. If you do not enter a date range, the system includes all active opportunities that have not closed as of the date the forecast is created.

2. To narrow the search for opportunities, complete any of these fields:

   • Opportunity Type

   • Industry

   • Probability

3. Specify the sales team or sales team member that is associated with the opportunities that you want to include in the forecast in the Sales Team field.

   The system searches for opportunities that contain the specified address number on the sales team.

4. Click the Generate button to display a list of opportunities that meet the criteria that you entered.

   These opportunities are now associated with the forecast.

5. To add additional opportunities to the forecast, click the Assign Opportunity button.

6. On Opportunity Search and Select, locate and select the opportunities that you want to include in the forecast, and then click Select.

   If you generated a list of opportunities, the opportunities that you select here are added to the generated list of opportunities. Be aware, if you click the Generate button again, the system regenerates the list of opportunities for the forecast based on the criteria that you define in steps 1 and 2, and discards any manual additions or deletions.

7. To remove an opportunity from the forecast, select the records that you want to remove in the Assigned Opportunities section of the form, and then click the Remove button.

8. When the Assigned Opportunities section of the form includes all of the opportunities that you want to associate with the forecast, click the Save Changes button.

Setting Processing Options for the Manage Forecasts Program (P90CB060)

Processing options enable you to specify the default processing for programs and reports.

For programs, you can specify options such as the default values for specific transactions, whether fields appear on a form, and the version of the program that you want to run.

For reports, processing options enable you to specify the information that appears on reports. For example, you set a processing option to include the fiscal year or the number of aging days on a report.

Do not modify JD Edwards EnterpriseOne demo versions, which are identified by ZJDE or XJDE prefixes. Copy these versions or create new versions to change any values, including the version number, version title, prompting options, security, and processing options.

Process

These processing options specify how the system processes forecast information.

Version

These processing options specify the version that the system uses to process forecast information.

Reviewing Sales Pipelines

This section provides an overview of sales pipelines and discusses how to review opportunities from the pipeline.

Understanding the Sales Pipeline

You use sales pipelines to help you forecast the amount of revenue that is associated with active sales opportunities. Active sales opportunities are those that have a probability greater than zero and less than 100. The Sales Pipeline program (P90CB128) displays potential revenue amounts in a graphical bar chart. Each bar in the chart represents a probability range. You can click on each bar to review the opportunities that are associated with that probability range.

You can review the sales pipeline for these entities:

• Employees

• Customers

• Contacts

• Competitors

• Forecasts

• Territories

• Industry Groupings

Each pipeline includes these probability ranges:

• 90–99 percent

• 80–89 percent

• 70–79 percent

• 60–69 percent

• 50–59 percent

• 40–49 percent

• 30–39 percent

• 20–29 percent

• 10–19 percent

• 1–9 percent

The system uses the probability associated with the sales cycle steps on the opportunity to calculate the amount of revenue to enter into the pipeline. The probability is multiplied by the value in the Potential Amount field. The system then inserts the calculated amount into the pipeline section that is associated with the opportunity's probability. The Line Item Total field is not used to calculate pipeline amounts.

This table shows how pipeline amounts are calculated for opportunities:

Using the Pipeline Chart

When you review a sales pipeline, the system creates a graphical bar chart with bars that represent the amount in each probability range. You can review the graphical chart for an overview of the pipeline or you can hover your cursor over a specific bar to view the amount that is associated with that probability range. Additionally, you can review detailed information about the opportunities that make up the chart by clicking on a particular bar. When you click on a bar, the system lists all of the opportunities associated with that bar, and you can the select and review each individual opportunity.

Note. If a probability range in the pipeline contains only a very small monetary amount, it is possible that the system will not display a bar for that range. However, you can review the amount associated with the range by hovering your cursor over that probability range. For example, if probability range 1–9 percent contains only 75 USD while other ranges have pipeline amounts of 78,000 USD and 84,000 USD, then the system will not display a bar for the 1–9 percent range. If you hover over that range, the system displays 75 USD as the amount.

The title of the pipeline bar chart displays the total monetary amount in the pipeline. The currency that is associated with the pipeline appears on the left side of the form. The currency appears only if currency processing is turned on.

Note. You can disable the graphical display of the pipeline information and choose to display your data in a nongraphical grid format. Visually impaired users who use screen-reading software might need to use the nongraphical format. You use the accessibility options in the user profile to determine whether you display the pipeline information in graphical or nongraphical format.

See JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.98 Security Administration Guide, Working With User and Role Profiles.

Forms Used to Review Sales Pipelines

Reviewing a Sales Pipeline

Access any of these forms, select the Sales tab, and then click the Pipeline link:

• Customer - Manage <customer name>

• Opportunity - Manage <opportunity name>

• Contact - Manage <contact name>

• Competitor - Manage <competitor name>

• Employee - Manage <employee name>

• Forecast - Manage <forecast name>