Automated Territory Assignment

Instead of manually choosing an owner for each account, lead, or opportunity line, you can use territories to automatically assign objects to the territory teams. Territories are assigned to objects by matching territory coverage with the attribute values of the object.

Territory Coverage

Territory coverage defines the boundary of each territory and describes the business rules by which assignments are made. You have three types of coverage:

• Dimensional Coverage

  This is a combination of dimensions with a list of values for each dimension. A territory dimension is mapped to an attribute on transactional objects during assignment processing. For example, the adddress dimension on the territory is mapped to the address of the account or the partner. The following standard dimensions are provided: address, product, industry, account type, organization type, customer size, and sales channel. Three additional dimensions are provided for you to configure with customer attributes.

• Inclusion Coverage

  This identifies a list of accounts, contacts, households, or partners to be included.

• Exclusion Coverage

  This identifies a list of accounts, contacts, households, or partners to be excluded.

You can define territories using a combination of different coverage definitions, thus giving your organization the power to model complex territories. Here are some examples:

• Steve is a key account director who covers three enterprise accounts, namely ACME Inc, Vision Corporation, and Pinnacle Technologies.

  You define Steve's territory with inclusion coverage of three accounts: ACME Inc, Vision Corporation, and Pinnacle Technologies.

• Amanda is a territory field salesperson who covers all the high tech accounts in Northern California. In addition, ABC Technologies, located in southern California, was also assigned to Amanda because she has a prior relationship with the CFO.

  You define Amanda's territory using a dimensional coverage with two dimensions (Address = Northern California, Industry = High Tech) and an inclusion coverage with one account, ABC Technologies.

Territory Assignment Execution

You can configure when territories are assigned to transactional objects and the frequency the assignment process should be executed. Territories can be assigned in real time as new transactions are created or when existing transactions are updated. You can also configure territory assignment to be run as a background process to assign transactions in batch. This is the recommended approach if you have a large volume of transactions.

During assignment execution, transactional attribute values are matched against territory coverage and all matching territories are assigned to the object. As an example, on a given opportunity, you can assign multiple territories composed of the sales team: the account representative, the industry overlay, a product specialist, the channel partner, and the channel account manager. This enables you to assemble the most effective sales team for each opportunity and to maximize your chances for closing the deal.