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Component documentationOpportunity Management

 

Opportunity Management is a part of Customer Relationship Management, which enables you to control your sales process. You can also do this in CRM Mobile, Partner Channel Management and the Interaction Center.

An opportunity is a recognized possibility for an enterprise, for example, for sales of products or services. An opportunity can, for example, result from a trade fair, a sales deal or a bid invitation.

The Opportunity describes the sales prospects, their requested products and services, the sales prospects' budget, the potential sales volume and an estimated sales probability. This information becomes concrete in the course of the sales cycle, and can be displayed and evaluated in the system.

Opportunity Management provides the framework for presenting sales projects from the very start, and tracking their progress. In this way, it provides the basis for an analysis and optimization of your enterprise.

It is particularly recommended that you use Opportunity Management if:

  • Many sales representatives work for you

  • Large sales order values are distributed

  • The sales cycle spans a long time period of time

Opportunity Management allows you to construct a sales methodology to suit your sales processes. Your sales employees are coached through the steps of an ideal sales process – from identifying the lead to closing the sale. For more information, see the documentation for Sales Methodology.

You can insert documents into an opportunity, and manage them. For example, product presentations which you have received for the opportunity, correspondence or material such as sketches, building plans and so on. You can use integrated Content Management here.

Integration

To process opportunities directly using the sales organization, and for the sales control to work efficiently, it is important that you also have access to a front end solution for offline business. SAP offers such a solution with CRM Mobile. An exchange between the two systems takes place through interfaces.

Opportunity Management works with SAP Business Partner and is integrated into CRM Partner Processing and CRM Organizational Management.

The following is contained in the CRM documentation:

Example

  1. A lead has been created by an employee in Marketing, as a result of a campaign, for example, an e-mail campaign. This lead has been designated as a hot lead by a sales representative. The lead is forwarded by workflow to the sales employee responsible, such as the sales representative or sales manager.

  2. You receive the lead in your workflow and then check it and accept it. The system creates an opportunity automatically, and copies the data from the lead according to the copying control defined in Customizing. This data could include, for example, a description for the new opportunity and a business partner.

  3. You contact the prospect, and enter further data relating to the opportunity, such as the estimated date of close, expected sales revenue, status, products, and members of the sales team.

  4. The system creates an activity plan according to the Customizing settings, which proposes specific activities for the different phases of the opportunity. For more information, see the documentation for Sales Assistant.

    You activate the required activities, and add new ones as required. You put together a specific activity plan for this opportunity.

  5. For opportunities which last over a long period of time, you plan the distribution of the expected sales revenue and order quantities, for the following months or the next quarter.

  6. You qualify the opportunity using the Opportunity Assessment, together with the chance of success calculated by the system resulting from the assessment. Based on this, you decide whether the project can be continued: “Go/No Go Decision”.

  7. You work with other elements of the Sales Methodology, such as the Buying Center, Project Goals and Competitor Information.

  8. You present the solution to the sales prospect, and create a quotation.

  9. After successful sales negotiations, you create an order.

  10. You set the status of the opportunity to won.

  11. For the analysis of the completed sales projects, you can carry out an assessment based on won or lost opportunities in SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence.