New Year, New Sales Pipeline

by Sinead Hayes - Sales & Marketing Manager


The start of a new year always brings new challenges, especially in this difficult economic climate. With it, however, also come opportunities.

In conjunction with a concise marketing plan, a sales pipeline projection for the year is always useful to map out the best, and worst, case scenarios for the year. Without knowing what potential sales are in the on the horizon, you can enter a new year in the dark.

I find a marketing plan to be absolutely critical for any salesperson, no matter how big or small their company is. Not having a marketing plan in place for the coming year is like setting out on a long journey without a map (or nowadays a SatNav!) - you will have no definite way to reach your destination of annual sales targets!

A good marketing plan should answer the following questions:

• What products/services will my company sell?
• What marketing activities will we need to carry out to meet the sales targets for the year?
• When is the best time to carry out those activities?
• To whom will we market our products/services to?

From this marketing plan should come an idea of how your sales target can be reached. Your sales pipeline can be then devised by week, by month, by quarter and/or by year to give you a clear picture of your sales prospects at any given time.

If you would like to hear more about sales pipelines and sales management, please do not hesitate to drop me a line by email or phone (01-8223 200)!

What is Business Intelligence and what can it do for your business?

by Brian Doherty - Senior Management Consultant

The recession has seen companies, large and small, re-assess how they do business. It is now necessary to maximise resources and opportunities to ensure sales are made and costs are reduced. To this end, there has been a strong interest in Business Intelligence (BI) software and how it can help businesses analyse the data they collect for cost-cutting or sales opportunities.

I will give a quick overview here of BI as a concept.

What is Business Intelligence?

In its simplest form, Business Intelligence refers to technologies used to gather, analyse and provide access to data to help businesses make better business decisions. It helps companies make practical use of their existing data.

What can Business Intelligence do for my Business?

• Identify trends and patterns in your existing data to gain a better understanding of your business
• Transform your existing data into actionable information
• Support future planning by identifying opportunities to increase revenue or reduce costs
• Reduce data duplication and use of multiple Excel spreadsheets
• Make better and faster business decisions by analysing metrics and KPIs that are not easily measured in a non-BI environment
• Produce management and ad-hoc reports
• Give a 360° view of your business, from sales and marketing figures, to stock and suppliers

As part of the Sage 200 platform product, Sage have recently launched a Business Intelligence (BI) module. I will be taking the technical training course next month to gain certification in Sage 200 BI and will report back with my thoughts on the product!

If you would like any more info on Business Intellience, please get in touch either by email or phone (01-8223 200). I'd be delighted to help!

New Issue of Advent News - Winter 2010

The Winter Edition of our quarterly newsletter "Advent News" is now out.

To view your own copy, simply click here

In light of the need for companies to reduce costs and maximise operational efficiencies going into 2010, we have been working on solutions to help our customers achieve these goals.

In the Winter Edition of Advent News, you can see:

• How Sage 50 2010 allows Sage 50 users to improve cash flow
• Business Intelligence for Sage 200 enables users to easily analyse trends & anomalies using graphical reports, helping them to make important business decisions (BI software is now Free of Charge for Sage 200 Version 2009 users)
• Our Hints & Tips section allows customers to get the most from their Sage system
• We are also delighted to welcome new staff members to the Advent team
• Boost your sales with CRM software!

We hope you find it's a good read!

Welcome to Our Blog!

The Advent team would like to welcome you to our blog. In the coming weeks and months, we will be posting news items, features and opinions to this blog to keep our customers, prospective customers and partners informed on the latest I.T. and software news from both within Advent and the wider market-place.

As one of Sage Ireland's leading Business Partners and one of Ireland's leading software development houses, Advent has grown over the years a skill-set that is second to none in identifying and developing solutions to help clients work more efficiently.

We hope this blog will share our skills and knowledge and will be a point of reference for the latest I.T news.

To read any of the posts, simply choose the month & title on the left-hand pane.

Here's to a Great 2010!