10 — CRM & Sales

Typical roles:

• Sales Administrator: Configures sales stages, territories, lead sources, and automation rules.
• Sales Manager: Owns pipeline governance, approvals, team targets, and forecasting.
• Sales Executive: Creates leads/opportunities, schedules activities, submits quotations.
• Pre-sales / Solution Consultant: Adds technical notes, scope assumptions, and proposal support.
• Read-only Executive: Views dashboards and reports only.

Permission recommendations:

1. Restrict deletion rights for leads, opportunities, and quotations.
2. Allow only Sales Manager (or above) to approve exceptional discounts.
3. Separate reporting visibility by territory/team where needed.
4. Track all stage changes and owner reassignments in activity logs.

1. Define sales structure

• Teams, territories, owner assignment rules.

1. Configure lead sources

• Website, referrals, campaigns, events, inbound calls.

1. Set pipeline stages

• Qualification, discovery, proposal, negotiation, won/lost.

1. Create probability model

• Stage-level win probabilities for forecasting.

1. Set activity templates

• Follow-up calls, demo meetings, proposal reminders.

1. Define quotation defaults

• Price lists, tax rules, validity periods, payment terms.

1. Enable approval matrix

• Discount/price override thresholds by role.

1. Configure notifications

• SLA reminders, stale opportunity alerts, assignment events.

1. Load sample data and validate

• Test lead capture and conversion path end-to-end.

### 1) Lead capture and qualification

1. Create lead manually or ingest from integrated channel.
2. Validate contact details and account fit.
3. Assign lead owner by territory or product line.
4. Qualify lead using standard checklist (budget, authority, need, timeline).
5. Convert qualified lead to opportunity.

### 2) Opportunity management

1. Create opportunity with expected value and close date.
2. Add activities (calls, demos, proposals) with due dates.
3. Update stage after each customer interaction.
4. Track blockers and competitor context in notes.
5. Submit pricing exceptions for manager approval when required.

### 3) Quotation process

1. Generate quotation from opportunity.
2. Select products/services, taxes, and terms.
3. Run internal review and approval workflow.
4. Send customer-ready quote and log communication.
5. Update status: accepted, revised, or rejected.

### 4) Conversion and handoff

1. Mark opportunity as won when customer confirms.
2. Convert to downstream sales/order process.
3. Handoff implementation details to operations/finance.
4. Close lost opportunities with reason codes for analysis.

• Lead Source Performance: Volume, quality, and conversion by source.
• Pipeline by Stage: Opportunity count and value by stage/team.
• Forecast vs Target: Projected closure value against monthly targets.
• Win/Loss Analysis: Reasons, competitors, and cycle-time trends.
• Sales Activity Report: Calls, meetings, and overdue tasks by rep.
• Discount Approval Report: Tracks exception pricing and approver actions.

Q1: Leads are not auto-assigned correctly.

• Review assignment rules (territory, source, product).
• Check for missing fields required by assignment logic.

Q2: Opportunity stages are inconsistent across reps.

• Enforce mandatory stage criteria and exit conditions.
• Lock manual stage skipping if policy requires strict flow.

Q3: Forecast seems inflated.

• Verify stage probabilities and stale opportunities.
• Require close-date updates during weekly pipeline review.

Q4: Quotations are sent without approval.

• Confirm approval matrix is enabled and role thresholds are set.
• Ensure users cannot bypass draft-to-approved transitions.

Q5: Duplicate leads are increasing.

• Activate duplicate detection on email/phone/company name.
• Define merge policy and ownership for duplicate cleanup.