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Business Planning > Scenario for Managing Plans for a Group of Accounts or Territories

Scenario for Managing Plans for a Group of Accounts or Territories

This scenario gives one example of how Oracle CRM On Demand business planning functionality might be used. You might use Oracle CRM On Demand business planning functionality differently, depending on your business model.

In this scenario, which is a variation of Scenario for Managing Plans for a Single Account, an account manager or sales manager performs the business planning for groups of accounts. Examples of these groups of accounts include an account manager's entire territory, a brick (a collection of accounts and contacts, normally in a common geographic area), a larger region, a market channel or segment, or a group of small accounts that do not warrant individual plans. Typically, the users performing the Scenario for Managing Plans for a Single Account also perform this scenario.

The account manager or sales manager performs the following tasks to manage plans for the group of accounts or territory:

1. Before the planning period, the account manager creates a business plan for each account. The plan establishes the high-level quantitative and qualitative goals for the account for the associated period. Typically, an annual plan and child quarterly plans are available, particularly for important accounts. The key metric for the business plan is revenue. Typically, there are always quarterly child plans and perhaps monthly child plans for lower-level planning. Certain fields, such as Contacts, might be left empty. Plans might exist at multiple levels of the hierarchy, such as territory, region, country, which can be created by recursive relationships in the Business Plan record type. The account manager creates the highest-level plan first, so that other personnel can create child plans below the parent in the hierarchy. For information on how to set up a business plan, see Business Plans.
2. In the approval process for the business plan, the account manager changes status of the plan from Draft to Submitted. Other key personnel review and edit the plan. The account manager approves the plan, changing the status to Final Approved. At the end of the planning period, the account manager can change the status to Expired to reduce the number of active plans.
3. The account manager completes the details of the business plan, namely the objectives. Objectives are goals that are at a lower level in the plan. For example, an objective might be to conduct a certain number of sales calls. The account manager can associate specific activities and opportunities with either a business plan or an objective. For information on how to set up an objective, see Objectives.

While performing the planning activities, the account manager can do the following:

• View plans, objectives, opportunities, and activities that are explicitly associated with an account and any associated account contacts.
• View any objectives that apply to all accounts.
• Review existing activities continuously, and create follow-up activities.