Managing Opportunities

This chapter describes how to manage opportunities. It includes the following topics:

About Managing Opportunities

An opportunity is a potential revenue-producing event related to one or more companies or individuals. An opportunity often has a close date, a win probability, and a sales team. It is typically related to contacts, products, decision issues, activities, or competitors.

In Siebel Financial Services Customer Order Management for Banking, the financial application uses the Sales Order Business Component and is managed through the Customer Order Management Quote, Order, Asset Lifecycle, and related functionality. The relationship between an opportunity object and the financial application is available, but is no longer a critical, required component of the functionality. It is up to the specific customer implementation to determine if an opportunity object is a required component of the intended sales process.

Note: In earlier versions of Siebel CRM, the opportunity object represented the baseline business object from which current financial application functionality was built. So the entire process of opening a financial account origination process was based on the opportunity object.

Opportunity functionality is relevant in the case of commercial and corporate banking, investment banking, wealth management, capital markets, and some types of insurance products. In retail banking where the customer is generally walking directly into a bank or opening an account online or over the phone, the branch sales representative rarely has the time to open and manage another sales object such as an opportunity; instead, the sales representative typically creates a new financial application directly for the customer.

Scenarios for Creating a New Opportunity

The following example scenarios describe how opportunities can be used by a sales representative, an investment banker, and their managers in the securities and banking industries. Your company might follow different scenarios depending on its business requirements.

Scenario for Using Opportunities to Keep Track of Potential Sales

Some financial products have a longer sales cycle (such as products in commercial banking, small business banking, lending, and mortgage). These products are more suitable for the opportunity functionality. For these products, use an opportunity object to keep track of the potential sales opportunities before opening the financial application.

For example: A customer might go into a bank and inquire about a mortgage rate first before opening up a mortgage application. In such a case, the mortgage sales representative creates an opportunity, then a quote under the opportunity. The sales representative then works with the quote to come up with the correct mortgage product and purchasing scenarios that the customer is interested in. If the customer is interested in the product, the sales representative can upgrade the quote to an application (or order) and submit the application for underwriting.

Scenario for Using Opportunities to Track Whether a Sales Deal Will Close

Typically, a sales representative uses opportunities to track longer sales processes, which depend on the sales representative’s consultative relationship with the customer. For example, a sales representative can use an opportunity to:

Record and track a prospective new loan opportunity.
Record and track a potential new IPO deal.

For more information about scenarios for creating a new opportunity, see Siebel Finance Guide.

Process of Managing Opportunities

The process of managing opportunities for Siebel Financial Services Customer Order Management for Banking is similar to the process of managing opportunities for Siebel Finance:

Administrators do the following:
1. Add opportunities (as administrators)
2. Manage opportunities
3. Manage team members
For more information about these tasks, see Siebel Finance Guide.
Users add opportunities in Siebel Finance and create opportunities from Siebel Business Applications. For more information about these tasks, see Siebel Finance Guide and the following:

Creating a New Opportunity

Use the following procedure to create a new opportunity. This task is a step in Process of Managing Opportunities.

To create a new opportunity

Navigate to the Opportunities screen.
In the Add section of the Opportunities screen:
1. Enter the name of the new opportunity in the Opportunity field.
2. Enter the date when the opportunity expires in the Close Date field.
3. If required, associate the opportunity with an existing account,
4. If required, specify a revenue target for the opportunity.
5. If required, associate the opportunity with an existing contact.
6. Click Add and Go to create the new opportunity.

Adding an Applicant to an Opportunity

Use the following procedure to add an applicant (contact) to an opportunity. This task is a step in Process of Managing Opportunities.

To add an applicant to an opportunity

Navigate to the Opportunities screen, then the Opportunities list view.
Drill down on the opportunity to which you want to add applicants.
Navigate to the Contacts view, and add applicants to the opportunity as follows:
1. Click New, and enter the contact details.
  Repeat this step as required.
2. Select the check box in the Primary field next to the contact that you want to specify as the primary contact.
Note: The primary contact is the primary owner of the financial application.

Adding a Product to an Opportunity

Use the following procedure to add a product to an opportunity. This task is a step in Process of Managing Opportunities.

To add a product to an opportunity

Navigate to the Opportunities screen, then the Opportunities list view.
Drill down on the opportunity to which you want to add a product.

Navigate to the Products view, click New, and complete the fields as described in the following table.

Field	Description
Automatic Quote	Ignore this field because the cost for retail finance is generally $0.00.
Product	Select a product from the picklist. For example: Child Savings Account
Part number (#)	Select the product part number from the picklist. For example: Child Savings Account 5673567N
Quantity	Enter a numeric value corresponding to the number of product units to order.
Net Price	Enter a numeric value corresponding to the price of the product.
Revenue	If the Automatic Quote check box is selected, then this field is automatically populated with the following value: Quantity field value * Net Price field value If the Automatic Quote check box is not selected, then this field displays 0.00 by default.
Probability %	Select the percentage representing the likelihood of winning the revenue for the corresponding opportunity from the picklist.
Sales Rep	The ID of the sales representative handling the opportunity.

Generating a Quote for an Opportunity

Use the following procedure to generate a quote for an opportunity. This task is an optional step in Process of Managing Opportunities.

To generate a quote for an opportunity

Navigate to the Opportunities screen, then the Opportunities list view.
Drill down on the opportunity for which you want to generate a quote.
Navigate to the Quotes view, then click Automatic Quote to generate a quote for the opportunity.
Upon creating a quote, note the following:
- The Name field is populated with a default value. You can edit this field.
- The Revision field has a value of 1.
  Each time you revise the quote by clicking Revise, this value increments by 1 and the revised quote becomes the Active quote.
- The Sales Status field has a value of In Progress.
- The Active field check box is selected.

Enabling the Applicant Group on a Quote

You must enable the applicant group on a quote, so that the correct applicant information is associated with each quote and subsequently with each financial application. Applicants added in this view can later be configured as part of the order process. To do this, add one or more contacts (applicants) to the Applicants view of the Quote.

Use the following procedure to enable the applicant group on a quote. In the following procedure, a quote is created for a checking account product. This task is a step in Process of Managing Opportunities.

To enable the applicant group on a quote

Navigate to the Quotes screen, then the Quotes list view.
Drill down on the quote (click the Quote number [#] field) for which you want to enable the applicant group.

Note: Alternatively, navigate to the Opportunities screen, Opportunities list view, drill down on an opportunity, navigate to the Quotes view, and then drill down on the Quote number (#) field.

Navigate to the Line Items view.

The Line Items view of the Quotes screen displays information similar to that in the following table. This example shows that no applicant group is enabled for the quote.

Line number	Product	Contact First Name	Last Name	Due
1	Checking Account	John	Smith	1/13/2009

Click Customize to start Siebel Configurator.

On the Siebel Configurator screen that is displayed, add an applicant as follows:

Click Add Relationship to add a new applicant for the Checking Account.
Customize applicant information by selecting a contact and assigning a role. Only applicants added in the Applicants view can be selected. Enter the other required information.

Click Save, then Done to return to the Line Items view on the Quotes screen.

Repeat this step to add each subsequent applicant. The following example shows that the applicant group is enabled for the quote.

Line Number	Product	Due
1	Checking Account	1/13/2009
	Applicant 1	1/13/2009
	Applicant 2	1/13/2009

Copying Applicants from an Opportunity to a Quote

In the situation where opportunities are used as part of the sales process, the Order Line Items attached to the opportunity must be transferred to the quote and if necessary, to the Order Business Component.

The following procedure describes how to copy applicants (contacts) from an opportunity in to a quote. This task is a step in Process of Managing Opportunities.

To copy applicants from an opportunity to a quote

Navigate to the Opportunities screen, then the Opportunities list view.
Drill down on the opportunity from which you want to copy applicants.
Navigate to the Contacts view, and review the contacts already associated with the opportunity. If required, add another contact.
For information on adding contacts, see Adding an Applicant to an Opportunity, and specify the primary contact.
Navigate to the Quotes view, then click Automatic Quote to generate a quote.
The primary contact First Name and Last Name fields (specified in Step 3) are copied from the opportunity to the same fields in the generated quote.

Copying Applicants from a Quote to a Financial Application

You can create a sales order directly from a quote by clicking the Apply for Product button. When a user selects the Apply for Product button, Siebel Business Application copies the applicants from a quote in the financial application (sales order).

The following procedure describes how to copy applicants from a quote in to a financial application. This task is a step in Process of Managing Opportunities.

To copy applicants from a quote to a financial application

Navigate to the Quotes screen, then the Quotes list view.
Drill down on a quote (click the Quote Number field).

Note: Alternatively, navigate to the Opportunities screen, Opportunities list view, drill down on an opportunity, navigate to the Quotes view, and then drill down on a quote.
Navigate to the Applications view, then click Create Application.
The Siebel Business Application copies all the product information and applicants associated with the quote that you opened in Step 2 to the financial application that you have just created.