Territory & Account Planning
Align Sales Force Activity to the Organization’s Strategy
Quality account and territory planning processes are essential to ensure that the right effort is targeted against the right opportunities, at the right time. Territory planning and account targeting are challenging endeavors, involving many stakeholders with different objectives and requiring very precise data processing to ensure accuracy. Targeting plans must be consistent with the overall resource allocation strategy, but to maximize field motivation and execution they must also be realistic and open to local adaptation.
ZS combines functional expertise with custom tools to deliver territory and targeting plans that exert real impact. Our teams work with clients across industries to understand their specific needs and to design coverage strategies that are aligned with overall organizational goals. The ZS approach enables clients to maximize sales and profits in each geography through:
- Alignment of implementation plans with the organization’s strategy
- Increased understanding of the strategy and endorsement of the targeting plan throughout the organization and across brand teams
- Better and more extensive execution of the plan by the field
Our approach is structured to guide the client team in making the right territory and targeting plan design decisions and to assist in executing them with precision. The process gives appropriate representation to key stakeholders from both marketing and sales, and provides full transparency throughout the various phases of the plan design.
Our experience, gained by working on hundreds of implementations across a diverse set of companies, has taught us that maximum return on the sales force investment is obtained when sales representatives are provided with the information, tools, and guidance necessary to carry out the desired account and territory planning processes.
We have developed a planning system that analyzes multiple scenarios using profit-maximizing optimization technology. It can model local-level operational parameters, such as travel and routing requirements, access limitations, impact of relationships, and disruption costs.
A centrally developed customer coverage plan, however, can only work if it is adopted at the local level. By providing sales representatives with tools that facilitate collaboration and allow them to review and adjust plans to their local environment, their rate of adoption and success grows significantly. Our research shows that sales people who pay close attention to plan execution get better results than their peers.