Streamlining Sales Process for TelCo

For our customer, one of the biggest telecommunication providers in Europe, we analysed their Salesforce Sales Cloud process. Their common challenges were that each opportunity was quite complex, and sales representatives utilised the software in their own way. Therefore, opportunities tended to stay longer in the funnel, consequently missing out on potential sales. Not only did we create transparency in the process, but we also discovered that combining opportunities and accounts helped to determine why an opportunity was lost and why the approvals took more time than expected. In addition, we analysed the length of stay of each opportunity to discover the root cause of ‘Ghost Opportunities’ and looked at compliance to understand whether sales reps were misusing the tool. Read on to find out how we streamlined our client’s Salesforce Sales Cloud with Process Mining.

WHAT IS SALESFORCE SALES CLOUD?

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to support sales and marketing. Specifically, the ease of use, response times, and customizable UI are essential. Furthermore, a single opportunity won or lost can make a difference in the company. Hence, understanding how every opportunity flows through the funnel making, allowing for process transparency and various KPIs, is crucial for improving internal performance and thus assuring a high win rate and understanding root causes for lost opportunities.

INTRO

Firstly, the company in question is one of the biggest telecommunication providers in Europe, operating in the international market. Chiefly, they specialize in network provision but also IoT and next-generation projects. Recently they have been involved in building smart cities where everything is connected, for instance, smart trash bins, smart traffic lights, smart traffic management etc. Additionally, many projects will reduce waste emissions and water consumption in terms of sustainable energy. Together with all these initiatives to digitize everyday things and soon simplify our lives are crucial for future evolution.

CHALLENGES

To begin with, common challenges within the sales department emerge due to the complexity of each opportunity and the fact that each sales representative uses Salesforce in their way. Because of this, some opportunities tend to stay longer in the funnel, becoming in some cases “Ghost Opportunities”, thus increasing the overall opportunity cycle time and consequently leading to poor forecast ability. Secondly, depending on the opportunity amount and which products are selling, the opportunity might need to go through a quoting tool or approvals, which is a factor that plays another critical role, increasing complexity. In particular, Process Mining helps identify the root causes of those breaches to pre-emptively improve the quality of your sales funnel and forecasts.

On the other hand, when tackled, these challenges turn into opportunities for your sales team, expressly decreasing cycle times and increasing the win rate.

PROJECT METHODOLOGY

To clarify, Process Mining enables end-to-end process transparency over multiple systems and layers. As a result, we discovered that combining opportunities and accounts help better understand what happened in lost opportunities and why the approvals or quotes took more time than expected. Firstly, the project was built on a set happy path defined with the customer. The process starts with the creation of an opportunity, which is opened when the sales team has contact with a lead with the potential to be closed and ends with the opportunity won or lost. Thus we decided to focus on three main business objectives: sales force performance, deal management and workflow & approvals. Therefore based on these objectives, we analyzed the length of stay of each opportunity in each sales funnel stage, understanding where opportunities slow down and potentially become “Ghost Opportunities”. However, their root causes are often unknown, making improvement initiatives challenging.

Additionally, connecting win rate to individual opportunities is challenging due to the complex IT landscapes of various quoting and approval tools. This leaves the analyses generic, preventing the ability to coach sales reps and improve opportunity handling and win rate on an ongoing basis. At last, looking at compliance, it was important for the company to understand whether sales reps were misusing the tool and skipping sales funnel stages.

In addition to uncovering inefficiencies, Process Mining is enriched by an intelligent automation component that triggers actions in multiple operational systems. Therefore, it could be possible to trigger actions and send reports when breaches are detected, connecting directly to the CRM system and “writing” upon it.

GENERAL FINDINGS

Specifically, the backbone of process mining is the process transparency generated by your as-is process. Therefore, looking into opportunity management, it was a complete surprise to the customer how non-standardized their process was.

Complete process flow

(All data is anonymized and randomized)

Forecast Accuracy

Having many opportunities open for an extended period doesn’t allow for any precise forecast on how much would be possible to close in this quarter or this month, for instance. However, the analysis uncovers the total amount in the local currency of opportunities and for how many days they’ve been inactive. Moreover, it is possible to see which sales rep has the most opportunities open.

Open Opportunities Dashboard

(All data is anonymized and randomized)

Add-adoption

Some CRM systems (such as Salesforce Sales Cloud) allow for the integration of add-ons, for example, for e-Signatures or Quotes. Process mining allows us to see the win rate when these add-ons are used in the opportunity and whether sales reps are adopting them. In addition, companies often invest considerable amounts in integrating other systems into the CRM; therefore, it is important to track their effect and usage.

System Usage Dashboard

(All data is anonymized and randomized)

Action flow and automated reporting

To overcome the problem of Ghost Opportunities, we built an Action Flow to report daily on opportunities open for an extended period. This allows sales reps to close them if they weren’t relevant anymore or to pick them up by contacting the lead who was interested but needed more time to think about it, for instance.

NEXT STEPS

Notably, the company has decided to add process mining to their long-term strategic goals to create transparency over its processes. In addition, continuously monitor the win rate and the potential improvement in their system use. To clarify, the real value of process mining was delivered on a limited scope and has shown the company its great potential to expand horizontally in the organization. Therefore Process Mining will become a central hub for transparent information, root cause analysis, and automatic reporting by making it part of their strategy.