SALES PLANNING

Sales Planning 
Sales planning is the assessment of the current situation in a sales region, the setting of objectives, the
formulation of strategies and tactics, and the establishment of control and evaluation procedures. 

A sales plan contains the objectives of the sales process, the responsibilities and incentives of those
involved in the sales process, and the resources that will be available or used for the sales process. The
sales plan usually includes objectives (sales targets), assigned sales representatives, what products they
are authorized to sell, list of sales roles, responsibilities, and territories.

This diagram shows how a sales process can be managed. In this example, the sales process is divided
key steps that can be defined and managed. The prospecting step is used to identify new customers or
expanded needs for existing customers. The qualification step is used to determine how many of the
prospects are qualified (real candidates) for the product or service. The interest assessment step is used
to determine how motivated the prospect is to take action to satisfy their need for the product or
service. The fact-finding stage is used to determine who are the decision makers and what steps are
necessary to complete the sale. The close involves the consolidation of the previous steps (coordination
of motivated decision makers) so purchases can result. The progress between each step can be tracked
and optimized. Included in the chart is an example activity time sheet showing that step may require
different levels of time commitment and that the allocation of resources (time for each salesperson) is
usually distributed along each step.
Sales Forecast

Sales Forecast definition :

A key input to a firm's financial planning process. External sales forecasts are based on
historical experience, statistical analysis, and consideration of various macroeconomic
factors.
Sales organization

Definition of Sales organization The sales organization is an organizational unit within Logistics. The basic
sales and distribution structure is defined using sales organizations.

Use
The sales organization represents the selling unit in the legal sense. It is responsible for example for
product liability and other rights of recourse; customer deliveries; business partner contacts; and direct
mailing campaigns. It also helps you to offset business operations internally.

Different components use the sales organization  object:

 G/L accounting (for account determination)

 Controlling (where the sales organization is used as a characteristic in profitability and market
segment analysis)
 Quality management in shipping.

Each sales organization is assigned to exactly one company code to which sales must be posted.

You can structure a sales organization into several distribution chains. This determines the channel
through which the sales organization can distribute materials and services. You can assign several
divisions to a sales organization. The sales organization is then responsible for distributing materials or
services for that division.

Each sales area determines the distribution channel through which the products of a division are sold.
Each distribution channel can be used by several plants, which in turn can be assigned to several
different company codes. If a sales organization and a plant are assigned to different company codes, the
system carries out an internal billing between the two company codes for each business transaction entry.

You can define your own master data within a sales organization. Each sales organization has its own
customer and materials master data, its own conditions and its own pricing policy.

Since a sales organization cannot share master data with other sales organizations, you must create
master data separately for each sales organization. However, you can create data for one distribution
channel or division and then use it in others.

A sales organization defines duties, roles, rights, and responsibilities of sales people engaged in selling activities meant for the
effective execution of the sales function.