Account-based forecasting is critical to support effective sales and revenue management. This forecasting methodology can drive revenue by calling out the prior year versus current-year same-period performance to re-capture and grow a cyclical business. Beyond the direct performance impact, accurate forecasts drive better planning and decision-making. Finally, account-level forecasts can provide rich data to support seller evaluation, coaching, and performance management.
While many companies realize value from account-based forecasting, they often face challenges in operationalizing the forecasting process, managing at scale, and maximizing the value of the data captured. We have seen a few common challenges regarding account-based forecasting we will cover.
Challenge #1: Manual, spreadsheet-based approaches to account-based forecasting are time-consuming and error-prone.
To generate account-based forecasts, companies often must export data with account lists, prior-year actuals, and other reference information to spreadsheets for users to enter data. These systems are brittle and require many hours of manual effort to maintain. A lack of tools to enforce data integrity, effectively track changes, and maintain accuracy as business data changes by the minute; lead to results that are less than optimal. Put another way, you must put in a lot of work to get satisfactory results.
Challenge #2: Managing multiple forecasting methodologies in tandem with an account-based forecasting and planning process is difficult.
Many companies need to leverage multiple forecasting methodologies based on different revenue profiles of products in their portfolio. The methods that work well to forecast direct insertion order sales are not useful for forecasting programmatic revenue. To deliver the strongest results, account-based forecasting and planning solutions enable users to make informed forecasts based on all relevant data sources. They also deliver analytics that allows for the compilation and comparison of different forecast metrics.
Challenge #3: Tools for managing qualitative data to support strategic account planning are not integrated with tools for quantitative account-based forecasting.
V2’s modern solution allows you to streamline your sales operations while reducing the risk of data being managed across multiple spreadsheets. Your team will also benefit by saving time, which allows your sellers and managers to focus on interacting with prospects and clients. We at V2 understand that every client is different, which is why we customize every solution to fit your company’s needs.
With our flexible solution, we can adjust to your organization’s nuanced approach to account planning and forecasting. We tailor our solution to your organization’s unique requirements, build a prototype, test, and deploy the solution in weeks. Our solution is classified as a consulting arrangement, meaning there are no annual license fees attached. Start your next quarter with a streamlined, secure solution from V2.
Get in Touch to discuss how V2 can help your organization with our proven Account Planning & Forecasting Manager solution built on the Salesforce platform.
