Question on implementing a sales workflow

[jbergantzel]

Our organization uses a sales methodology that follows the "deal" as it progresses thru to win or lose. During the sales process, it may become (most likely will) necessary to have our end-user contact pass us on up the chain of command at his/her company.

It appears that Sugar (at least out of the box) is more adept at following people, as opposed to a "deal". Are there any tools within the Studio to help change the work flow process?

Namely, when you reach a point in the sales process, and identify that the person you're speaking with doesn't have the authority to make a purchase, but they will introduce you to someone that does. Is there a way to script that handoff, and maintain a relationship between those contacts?

I'm not looking for the exact steps in accomplishing that. Just trying to get an idea on if it's something that is:

a. out of the box functionality
b. attainable with the built-in customizations
c. attainable with programming


Thanks for taking a look!

[sugarcane]

Hello,

Sugar can definitely meet your needs. You can track the sales process using the Opportunities module. Within the opportunities module, there are fields like Amount, Sales Stage, Probability, which all help to track the stage the opportunity is in. The sales stage dropdown can be customized to display your company's stages.

The general sales flow within Sugar is as follows:
-Create a lead (contains contact information, as well as company)
-When you are ready to create an opportunity, convert the lead into a contact and account
-Create the opportunity. The opportunity is tracked against the account and can additionally be tracked against a contact
-In your example, if you need to add another contact person (the person authorized to make a purchase), all you need to do is create a new contact that is linked to the same account. You can then link this new contact to the same opportunity. The 1st contact is still in the system under the same account, so you can see the relationship.
-There is also a special Role field between contacts and Opportunities. It is a dropdown field, so the values could be customized to your needs. So in your example, you could still have the 1st person linked to the Opportunity and their role in regards to the Opp could be something like Evaluator, while the 2nd person could be linked to the same Opp with a role of Decision Maker.

If you wish to discuss the above or how you can use the system to fit your needs in more detail, please feel free to contact Ray Stoeckicht at rays@intelestream.net or 888-435-2221

[phillipevansF]

Hi Sugarcane

fantastic info and very well wrtten.

(I'm a newbie still fumbling with the its capability)

Regards