Utilizing the Opportunity for Potential Deals with a Customer or Lead

An opportunity allows you to manage the sales cycle for potential deals with a customer or lead.

Opportunities give you visibility into your sales pipeline for individual sales employees or the company as a whole.

The following graphic outlines the sales opportunity process.

• Step 1: Sales managers set up important information such as which stages a sale will pass through and the likelihood by percentage of closing the sale. This information will help in forecasting sales. The key to successful setup is to decide what you wish to monitor during the sales process. These will assist the manager in forecasting sales.
• Step 2: Sales employees enter sales opportunities and manage them throughout the sales process. The more details entered in an opportunity, the more visibility you will have later when you report on the leads. Ongoing appointments, phone calls, tasks, and contact management can be coordinated through the opportunity via related activities.
• Step 3: Analytics on sales opportunities gives both sales managers and sales employees visibility into the sales pipeline, won and lost opportunities, and sales forecasting.

Sales stages can be adjusted later, if needed. All the sales forecasts are adjusted automatically.

Opportunities are structured into stages which reflect the stages of your sales cycle for potential customers and deals. The following graphic shows an example of a sales cycle with five stages: lead, first meeting, second meeting, quotation, and negotiations. Stages can be customized to match your company’s sales process.

When defining the stages, you can enter what you expect to happen in each stage. So, for each stage, define the name, the place of this stage in the cycle, and the closing percentage to indicate the progress of the opportunity.

Then, when working with each opportunity, you can track the potential of the deal. At each stage in the cycle, you can enter the potential amount of the deal and the system predicts the opportunity’s probability of success based on the percentages set up in advance.

And ultimately, you can track whether the deal has been won or lost.

The following image shows you the opportunity stages defined for OEC Computers.

To define opportunity stages, carry out the following steps:

1. From the home page, choose the Web client menu.
2. Go to Administration → Configuration.
3. Go to CRM → Opportunities → Opportunity Stages. This shows the stages already defined.
4. If you choose Edit, you can add new stages or change the details of existing stages.

• Opportunities help you track and manage potential deals throughout the sales cycle with customers or leads.
• Customizable sales stages and closing percentages provide accurate forecasting and visibility into your sales pipeline.
• Detailed opportunity records, including activities and documents, improve collaboration and reporting.
• Opportunity status updates, such as Won or Lost, automatically adjust forecasts and close the opportunity.
• List views and analytics support sales managers in prioritizing tasks and optimizing the sales process.