Setting and Achieving Objectives

This chapter covers the following topics:

About Setting and Achieving Objectives

An objective is usually a sales or marketing goal, assigned to a particular individual or team, and targeted at a particular set of accounts or contacts. It includes one or more recommended activities to be performed by sales representatives as they visit the target contacts and accounts to which the objective is applied.

Ideally, objectives should be implemented at the beginning of a planning cycle.

Objectives can have child objectives associated with them. For example, an overall objective of increasing prescriptions of a particular product might have associated sub-objectives of increased calls to certain contacts or accounts and improved education on product issues.

Structuring Objectives

Managers typically define objectives for their teams, but individual users can also define personal objectives for themselves or create child objectives of larger objectives that have been defined for them. If there is general information about the objective that all team members need to know, include it in the Summary text. If there are electronic versions of documents or graphics that are related to the objective, add them as attachments.

The process of associating accounts and contacts with objectives is an excellent candidate for using target lists. After creating target lists of contacts and accounts at whom you will direct your sales efforts, you can apply those lists in the Objective Targets view.

Scenario for Objectives

This scenario is an example process performed by a pharmaceutical district manager and sales representatives to create and fulfill sales objectives. Your company might follow a different process according to its business needs.

Your company, a large pharmaceutical manufacturer, has received approval for a new indication for one of your products. The district manager is responsible for making sure that the sales representatives reporting to her take the actions necessary to have a successful launch of this product for the new indication.

The district manager begins by creating an objective. Next, she creates three recommended activities that she wants each member of her sales force to carry out in order to meet this objective: to attend a training program, to attend a team meeting to outline tactical aspects of promoting the new indication, and to conduct contact calls. In order to communicate the importance of these activities to her sales force, she assigns the priority “1-ASAP" to all three recommended activities. She also adds a product insert to the objective as a literature item. Her sales representatives can use this product insert to gain valuable information about the new indication prior to visiting contacts. Finally, she adds every targeted contact in each territory to the objective, adds each sales representative as an objective team member.

As the sales representatives check their calendars, they will see that the district manager has scheduled a series of calls for them to complete. As they prepare for each of these calls, they can review the objective and the recommended activities she has created and the product insert she added. Later, as the new indication launch is in progress and the sales representatives are performing sample drops, the district manager and sales representatives can review the objective.

Process of Setting Up Objectives

This topic details sample tasks often performed by administrators and end users when working with objectives. Your company might follow a different process according to its business requirements.

Administrator Procedures

The following list shows tasks typically performed by district managers or marketing administrators. Although some companies choose to allow sales representative to create their own objectives.

End-User Procedures

The following list shows tasks end users typically perform when managing their objectives:

Creating an Objective

This task is a step in Process of Setting Up Objectives.

You must complete this task before performing the remaining tasks in this chapter. If you need an objective to recur, see Creating Recurring Objectives.

To create an objective

Navigate to the Objectives screen.

Create a new record and complete the necessary fields.

Some fields are described in the following table.

Field	Comments
Parent Objective	If this objective is a subgoal of another objective, select the parent objective. The parent objective defines some of the criteria for all of its child objectives. For example, child objectives are constrained to the products associated with the parent objective, if any. You can create parent objectives without completing the Parent Objective field. You must complete the Parent Objective field when creating child objectives. Parent-child relationships between objectives can be viewed in the Objectives Explorer view. Note that child objectives are not constrained by the organization or team definitions of the parent objectives.
Type	The type of objective being created; for example, a promotion or a marketing type of objective. Selecting the type of objective does not drive any other functionality within the product.
Description	A few words which describe the purpose of the objective.
Start Date	The start date of an objective. It must fall within the objective’s time period. This field is automatically updated if the Period field is changed.
End Date	The ending date of an objective. It must fall within the objective’s time period. This field is automatically updated if the Period field is changed.
Period	The period of time during which an objective must be completed.
Actual	This data must be imported by the Siebel administrator using EIM. You cannot manually edit this field.
Last Actual Update	This date must be added by the Siebel administrator using Siebel EIM, after the Actual data has been updated. You cannot manually edit this field.
Organization	The organization will constrain the target accounts that will be available to associate with the objective.
Team	Multiple people can be assigned to the objective’s team.
Business Plan	If this objective is associated with a business plan for a managed-care account, enter the plan name.

Creating Recurring Objectives

At some time you might want to create recurring objectives. You can:

Change the period of an existing objective
Copy an existing objective and apply a new period to it
Use a workflow to schedule monthly calls. For general information about workflows, see Siebel Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide.

Note: Deleting an objective completely removes the objective from the system. If you are unsure about whether the objective is still active (and therefore should not be deleted), you can remove yourself from the objective’s team instead of deleting the record.

Creating Recommended Activities for an Objective

This task is a step in Process of Setting Up Objectives.

You can create one or more recommended activities for an objective. These recommended activities are a guide for sale representatives. Sales representatives can review this list and create similar activities for their accounts and contacts targeted for the objective.

To create recommended activities for an objective

Navigate to the Objectives screen.
In the Objectives list, drill down on the objective for which you want to create an activity.
Click the Activities tab.

In the Activities list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.

Some fields are described in the following table.

Fields	Comments
Type	The type of activity to be performed; for example, an assessment or presentation.
Assessment Template	If the recommended activity requires an assessment to be carried out, the relevant assessment template should be added here.
Products	Each activity can have one or more products associated with it. The choice of products is restricted to products that are already associated with the objective. To add products to an objective, see Creating an Objective.

Targeting Accounts to an Objective

This task is a step in Process of Setting Up Objectives.

You can apply objectives to one or more target accounts. The target accounts that will be available are those that belong to the organization of which the user is an account team member.

In the Objective Targets view, add and view accounts and contacts targeted for an objective. You can display charts of progress toward a quantified goal for target accounts or target contacts. A variety of chart formats can be selected from the drop-down menu in the chart view.

Note: For general information on creating and applying target lists, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

To specify target accounts or contacts for an objective

Navigate to the Objectives screen.
In the Objectives list, drill down on an objective.
Click the Targets tab.
Create new target accounts and contacts for the objective as follows:
1. Click the Target Accounts tab, create new target account records and complete the necessary fields. You can select multiple records in the Add Accounts dialog box.
2. Click the Target Contacts tab, create new target contact records and complete the necessary fields. You can select multiple records in the Add Contacts dialog boxes.
  
  Note: You can also add accounts through the Target Accounts view (click Commit) and the Account Status view. You can also add contacts through the Contacts Status view.
In the Objective form, click Schedule to automatically create and schedule calls to the targeted accounts and contacts.
The account calls and contact calls are scheduled for the current date and time.
Navigate to the Calendar screen, then the Daily view, and edit the start and end times for the account and contact call records.

Note: Data for the Actual Amount fields in the Target Accounts and Target Contacts lists must be imported by the Siebel administrator. You cannot manually edit these fields. For more information, see Importing Data into Life Sciences.

Loading Actual Amount Fields Using EIM

This task is a step in Process of Setting Up Objectives.

You must load data into the Actual Amounts fields of Target Accounts and Target Contacts using Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager (EIM). Once loaded, this data becomes read-only. Refer to Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager Administration Guide.

Reviewing Objectives

When end users navigate to the Objectives screen, the default filter used on the Objectives list is My Objectives. The availability of the other view, My Team’s Objectives, can be limited by the user’s responsibilities.

The remaining view and fields visible to the end users in the Objectives screen are identical to those available to the administrator.

This task is a step in Process of Setting Up Objectives.

To review objectives

Navigate to the Objectives screen.
From the view drop-down list, select the appropriate filter:
- My Objectives. Objectives for which the user is assigned to the team
- My Team’s Objectives. All objectives within a manager’s team, including their own
- All Objectives. If available, the list of objectives for the default organization, such as department, business unit, or sales force
- All Objectives Across Organization. If available, the most comprehensive list of objectives
Drill down on an objective.
Use the following tabs to review recommended activities, target accounts, and other information about the objectives:
Activities, Target Contacts, Target Accounts, Account Status, Attachments.

Charting Objectives

During the campaign, managers and sales representatives can graph objective data.

This task is a step in Process of Setting Up Objectives.

To chart objectives

Navigate to the Objectives screen.
In the Objectives list, select the objective whose status you want to review.
Click the Charts tab.
From the view drop-down list, choose an available chart.