Using tools in creative ways for product and service portfolio management

A business process should not be limited by the edges of functional areas nor the tools used to support them.

The process of selling is at its end point the goal of creating cash. Every business depends on creating cash. So the business process of selling either product or services start with the creation of the product or service based on market requirements and the value that would be willing to pay for such a product or service in their business.

Thus, in order to justify a product or services a list of potential features and a suggested price point are needed but also should be a list of clients that are willing to buy such a product or service. For such new products or services, the "sales" process begins at the concept of a product or service. Similar to any sales opportunity, these potential sales can be tracked and aggregated to determine the near term sales opportunity (e.g., early adopters). More granular opportunities can present the market potential as forecasted over time. By doing this for each product or service line you can then determine the long term aggregate value of the product or service lines over time as a portfolio.

Because tools like Salesforce.com allow for the process to be changed as well as allow for multiple processes for different types of opportunities as well as define the forecast categories, it is then possible to model your entire portfolio in Salesforce.com. This also allows you to use the Dashboards through Metrics and Reports to provide the Portfolio type graphics and measurements. So by using the same tool, you can actually model the Portfolio selection process usually done by the Product Management or FPA group. Think of this now as the Product or Services pipeline. These initial opportunities then rollover naturally into the traditional Sales pipeline.

Note also that collateral for the Product and/or Service can be stored in Salesforce,com from the beginning rather than being a last minute add to Salesforce.com because Salesforce.com allows for document storage and pointers to those documents can be added to an Opportunity through their capability of allowing additional user defined fields. Additionally, any contracts that the product or service depends on can be added with reminders about expiration dates to initiate the renewal process.

Thus Salesforce.com can be used in creative ways to encapsulate more of the total business process than would be implied by the company name or any the feature that Salesforce.com credit themselves with.