Well—don’t get me wrong. It isn’t that I doubt the abilities of your gut. In fact, I’m confident that your gut has made a lot of great decisions in the past. But there is a more reliable—not to mention defensible—solution that you might want to try.

Apprivo Special Pricing provides the transparency you need to make informed pricing decisions, whether selling direct or indirect. So you’ll never have to worry about losing money on a gut-instinct pricing decision ever again.

Using Apprivo Special Pricing is easy. Simply enter the line-item discounts you need to win the business, and Apprivo automatically calculates the impact on your distributor and your company’s net and gross margin. Customized approval routing ensures the person with right level of authority receives the request.

This innovation accelerates the decision-making process by permitting you to instantly analyze the impact of non-standard pricing across the entire value chain to determine whether the business is worth winning. Apprivo even simplifies the reconciliation process by calculating and tracking expected channel claims, alleviating verification headaches for you and your partners.

Watch a demo now to learn more about Apprivo Portal Publisher.

To the point…

Apprivo Special Pricing:

- Helps you make informed pricing decisions with full transparency
- Analyzes impact of non-standard pricing across the entire value chain
- Accelerates approvals with automated SPR routing
- Reduces rebate headaches by simplifying reconciliation

Apprivo Special Pricing is available immediately. For pricing and purchasing details, contact Apprivo today.

If you answered “Named Accounts,” then you’re absolutely right.

But named accounts aren’t a native feature of Salesforce. That means, in order to use named accounts, you’ll have to develop distinct lead assignment rules for every desired account. Even with a medium volume of accounts, this process will quickly become unmanageable.

Quiz time, part two. Is there an easier, more manageable way to apply a named accounts approach to Salesforce?

If you said “Yes,” well, don’t be too proud of yourself—it was a 50/50 shot.

With Apprivo Named Accounts, you can distinguish whether or not an account is “named” in Salesforce.

This innovation allows you to break free of assignment rules by creating matching rules that use either the account name or email domain of the named account to automatically route leads or send notifications to the appropriate account owner. The process is streamlined, scalable and manageable.

In other words, you’ll minimize channel conflict and strengthen key customer relationships.

Watch a demo now to learn more about Apprivo Portal Publisher.

To the point…

Apprivo Named Accounts:

-    Protects customer relationships
-    Minimizes channel conflict with tighter sales alignment
-    Accelerates conversion with clear account ownership
-    Reduces admin overhead with efficient matching rules

Apprivo Named Accounts is available immediately. For pricing and purchasing details, contact Apprivo today.

They were trying to decide between the Professional and Enterprise Editions. They felt that their needs were basic and were therefore inclined towards the Professional Edition. At a high level they needed:
•    Basic lead and opportunity management
•    Account and contact management
•    Reporting and dashboards

They asked me as the implementation partner which factors they should consider in their selection.

My advice was to approach this selection very carefully, and not just from a financial perspective. While the list price of the Professional Edition is almost 50% the cost of the Enterprise Edition, there are significant differences between the two versions. Choosing the Professional Edition because you think your current needs are “basic” may cost you later in terms of user adoption, user satisfaction, and potential expense of re-implementing the Enterprise Edition if you discover that the Professional Edition cannot meet your business requirements.

Salesforce does a good job of documenting the differences between versions at http://www.salesforce.com/products/editions-pricing/feature-comparison. Rather than repeat the comparison chart, I will point out the unavailable features in the Professional Edition that may help you determine whether you need to buy the Enterprise Edition. Note: The points below are mainly geared towards a traditional sales organization, not a support or channel model.

1. User Profiles and Permissions

Do your users all intend to have the same data privileges or will there be exceptions? The Professional Edition provides a fixed number of user profiles that cannot be edited, so all users see the same feature set, tabs, and form layouts.

While a security hierarchy is supported in Professional Edition there is no field level security. Consequently, this limitation more than others pushes people to the Enterprise Edition.

2. Product Catalog

If you plan to have a product catalog, and have salespeople build opportunities using products, the product catalog is not available as standard in the Professional Edition, but can be purchased for an extra fee.

If product granularity on opportunities is important from a reporting and/or production visibility perspective, either buying this feature as an add-on or selecting Enterprise Edition is needed.

3. Workflow

Workflow – both standard and approval – is not available in Professional Edition. Arguably for a small sales team this may not be a show stopper as a review of reports/dashboards would suffice for small data volumes and a small number of users.

As your sales team and transaction volume grows the need for workflow in the form of email notifications, tasks being created, fields being updated, and callouts to external systems such as an order management system will also grow.

4. Campaign Management

Also available as a Professional Edition add-on is the campaign module. Consider this add-on or the Enterprise Edition if you need to aggregate leads or contacts into campaigns for campaign ROI analysis and mass mailings.

5. Outlook/ Mail Integration

Will your sales people want the ability to automatically add emails from Outlook to Salesforce? With Professional Edition they will not be able to do this unless you also purchase the API.

6. API/Integration Capabilities

Access to the Salesforce force.com web services API is not available in Professional Edition as standard, but can be purchased for an extra fee. While the Professional Edition supports some basic imports it does not support the full import/update/delete capabilities offered in the Enterprise Edition.

If you plan to integrate Salesforce with other external systems, or even periodically load data into custom objects, this is not supported in the Professional Edition. Carefully consider this requirement for both your initial implementation, which may require data migration, and for your ongoing needs.
Be aware that Single Sign On is not available, even for an extra fee.

7. Force.com Development

The force.com application development platform is not available for Professional Edition so no Apex code based customizations/extensions are possible. S-control based code is supported if the force.com API add-on is purchased.

One of the areas we have found this to be an issue is in the lead conversion process. Many companies want to do something custom to support their specific process, such as setting up two contacts that are captured on the lead record, or mapping some other related list data to the mapped account/contact/opportunity.

8. Translations

Professional Edition does not provide the Translation Workbench, which is a tool that allows administrators to provide foreign language translations for custom fields/tabs/objects, etc. If you need to support multiple languages, and have created any custom objects or custom fields, then Enterprise Edition is required.

In closing, our experience has been that most companies opt for the Enterprise Edition. Part of this is a function of the types of customers we target and part is a function of the Enterprise Edition offering the best value and long term growth prospects for a sales organization beyond single digit users. The few Professional customers we support have a small number of users, a simple sales process, and sometimes no dedicated Salesforce administrator. However, we often get a collective moan from these customers when they ask us, “Is xyz possible?” and we tell them, “Yes, if you upgrade to Enterprise Edition!”

Bottom line:
•    Think about your long term strategic vision regarding how you will use Salesforce
•    Consider all of your users needs
•    Review the list above to determine the “must haves” from the “nice to haves”
•    Don’t make the decision just based on cost. By the time you add on the cost of some Professional Edition add-ons and you factor in some of the manual work you will likely perform on the workarounds, you my be closer to the cost of Enterprise licenses than you think!

If you need advice regarding which Salesforce edition is right for you, feel free to contact Apprivo directly for a no-obligation consultation.

To help guide your decision, we’ve indentified the top five factors to consider when determining whether leads or opportunities offer a better starting point for your deal registration system.

Who Approves Deal Registrations?

The question of who approves deal registrations impacts the decision of whether to use leads or opportunities. Let’s consider the options:

Channel Manager

If the channel manager is approving deal registrations you want as few steps as possible.  We all know that channel managers are busy with multiple partner activities and they risk becoming a bottleneck in the process. When starting with leads, the approval process at a minimum requires that the approver search for potentially duplicate deals – whether internal or from another partner – approve or reject the deal, and then convert the registration to an opportunity. These processes are time consuming yet imperative. The importance of searching for duplicate deals cannot be understated in order to minimize channel conflict. Starting with opportunities simplifies the process by eliminating the conversion step.

Deal Desk

Larger companies with high deal registration volumes may have a dedicated deal desk to process registrations and therefore the bottleneck issue is less of a concern. Furthermore, a central deal desk will have more time to search for duplicate registrations and manage the lead-to-opportunity conversion process. Consequently, starting with leads is a viable option.  If you decide to start with opportunities, be aware that opportunities cannot be assigned and owned by a queue for approval when using the native Salesforce workflow. The current work around is to grant deal desk users greater administrative rights to be able to approve deals, which we have found to be an acceptable tradeoff.

What is the approval criteria and process?

Your approval process can be designed for both lead and opportunity objects. However, if deal registration approval hinges on the ability to identify whether net-new products are being sold into an account that is either existing or new, then it makes sense to start with the opportunity object.

What is the volume of registrations?

If you have a large volume of registrations, consider using the leads object. The advantage is that leads can be owned by a queue. This alleviates process bottlenecks by enabling multiple approvers – whether centralized at a deal desk or decentralized in the field – to rapidly respond to registrations.

How do you identify duplicate registrations?

Salesforce ships with robust functionality for identifying duplications using the lead object. The intended goal is keeping account and contact data clean. Yet this same functionality allows you to avert potential channel conflict by effortlessly identifying dupes and consistently adjudicating approvals. If you start with the opportunity object, a similar level of functionality is achievable, but custom development is required.

How do you forecast registered deals?

If your deal registration program is offered to an elite sub-set of trusted partners that are empowered to update opportunity sales stages, thus directly impacting your forecast, then starting with the opportunity object may be advantageous. If you pursue this path, you will need to consider how to handle the accounts and contacts associated with approved opportunities so data integrity is maintained. You will also need to bullet proof your de-duping and approval processes to safeguard forecast accuracy so multiple representations of the same opportunity don’t slip onto your forecast.

Who owns the opportunity for approved registrations?

If you use a referral sales model where the partner identifies the deal and your team closes the opportunity, then starting with leads is an obvious choice. If you have a high touch channel model where your partner is responsible for identifying and closing deals, but your team updates the opportunity, leads may also offer a good starting point. In both scenarios, you maintain control over opportunity conversion and forecast management. If you pursue this path, beware of potential bottlenecks on the front and back end of the sales process and adjust internal resources accordingly.

So, where will you start, with leads or opportunities? The answer will differ from organization to organization based on channel structure, deal registration approval criteria, deal volume and a number of other considerations. Whether starting with leads or opportunities, you can rest assured that Salesforce supports both equally well.

If you need advice regarding which Salesforce object is right for your deal registration system, feel free to contact Apprivo directly for a no-obligation consultation.