Increased market volatility and economic uncertainty are without a doubt impacting business priorities in virtually every industry around the globe. In times of uncertainty and instability, the most effective businesses target investments that promote smart, profitable growth with improved margins tempered by bottom line cost containment and reduction. Collaboration across sales and marketing channels is critical to maintain relevance in a highly competitive market with evolving go-to-market strategies, an increasingly demanding customer base, and an ever-changing mix of products, services, and solutions.

To capture the most revenue and improve margins, companies need a solution that simplifies the end-to-end "lead to cash" business processes, resulting in:

• Leveraging past order and interaction history for accurate and effective product recommendations
• Satisfying customer demand while minimising cost-of-sales across demand and supply chains
• Identifying and capitalising immediate revenue opportunities to maximise revenue capture
• Developing more effective sales strategies through immediate visibility into price, profit, and cost-to-serve factors.

Software and Services for Accelerated Lead to Cash

SAP software and services can help companies accelerate lead-to-cash processes through coordinated and integrated capabilities and services built on an open platform, such as:

• Effective sales planning – Develop highly targeted and well-tested campaigns, executing in an integrated, multichannel fashion, and automatically qualifying leads using well-defined criteria.
• Sales performance management – Monitor real-time sales performance and react immediately to changing market and deal conditions.
• Collaborative pipeline management – Improve transparency, accountability, and sales team performance by providing and sharing relevant opportunity information, managing key activities, and delivering impactful value propositions through proper product bundling.
• Perfect order processing – Ensure accurate quotations and order entry across every selling channel to reduce order errors, satisfy your customers, and shortening day sales outstanding – no matter the size or complexity of the order.

According to a recent SAP benchmarking report, companies leveraging SAP software and services to accelerate lead to cash processes are experiencing:

• Decreased average sales cycle time by 10% - 20%
• Enhanced cross-selling and up-selling by up to 20%
• Increased opportunity close rates by 8% - 10%
• Reduced order entry errors by 20% - 30%

Running on the SAP NetWeaver technology platform, you can support multichannel sales execution processes through customer-facing portals, while enhancing your sales force with mobile options.

To help you optimise sales performance, SAP and partner services provide education offerings that deliver up-to-date information and training across decentralised and global workforces. Quick and efficient implementation projects are simple with SAP as a trusted advisor, providing solution and technical experts throughout the engagement so that you have access to the latest tools, methodologies, and assessments.

Learn More

• Get involved: Visit Inside Access.
• Find out more about SAP partner solutions and services.