Territory management automation: Lead routing is just the tip of the iceberg – Part 1

If you’ve ever heard the term “speed to lead,” then you know how critical fast, accurate lead routing is for converting prospects. In fact, Harvard Business Review research shows that a salesperson is 60 times more likely to have a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker when following up within one hour of receiving a lead than after 24 hours. But automating this process is anything but easy.

You can use native CRM features and third-party point solutions to do it, but our customers tell us how frustrated they are—both with how poorly this process works and the amount of time they spend on manual remediation.

You can’t solve lead routing without addressing several other foundational data processes. And if you haven’t set up those foundational data processes properly, lead routing suffers. That’s why lead routing is just the tip of a much larger iceberg. And that iceberg is territory management automation.

What is territory management automation?

Territory management automation is the processes and technology required to accurately assign all revenue-related relationships, typically represented by data objects in a CRM, including assigning:

• Sales reps to territories
• Accounts to sales reps and territories
• Buying centers or demand units to sales reps
• Leads and contacts to sales reps and buying centers
• Opportunities, orders, and tasks to sales reps

Territory Management Automation software processes include data quality, segmentation, account hierarchy, lead-to-account matching, scoring and grading, and of course—lead routing.

Why is territory management automation important?

Successful territory management automation does more than provide a framework for an efficient lead routing program. But don’t just take our word for it, here are some telling territory management statistics from a survey of over 100 enterprise companies:

• Companies using technology in territory design achieve 10% more of their sales objectives than average.
• 76% of companies design and plan sales territories once a year. Most of these companies believe they’d get more value out of more frequent planning, but time, technology, and sales disruptions make more frequent planning impractical.

Territory management automation software doesn’t only contribute to higher sales, it also increases organizational efficiency and reduces costs. But companies find it difficult to roll out this kind of program because executing proper territory assignments and maintaining these relationships grows exponentially with your sales organization. The irony is, the larger your sales force, the more you need territory management automation. As a rule of thumb—once you have more than 50 sales reps, you’ll need a comprehensive territory management automation platform, not just a simple lead routing tool.

So, how do you structure your territory management automation program? You start from the bottom up, starting with the foundational data processes. Once you’ve automated those foundational processes, you can focus on lead routing. After you’ve automated all these processes, including lead routing, you’ll have a scalable and automated territory management program.

Watch for the next blog in this series where we take a deep dive into the elements of territory management automation and show you why each one is a must-have for your territory management initiative.

Catch part 2 of this blog, here.

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