Salesforce.

com: Spring 13

Territory Management Decision Guide

Last updated: April 19, 2013

Copyright 20002013 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce.com is a registered trademark of salesforce.com, inc., as are other

names and marks. Other marks appearing herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Territory Management Decision Guide ................................................................................................1
Preface.......................................................................................................................................................................................1 Introduction..............................................................................................................................................................................1 The Salesforce Territory Management Feature.........................................................................................................................2 Salesforce Territory Management Decision Tree......................................................................................................................5 Scenarios....................................................................................................................................................................................6 Platform-Based Solutions..........................................................................................................................................................9

Table of Contents

ii

TERRITORY MANAGEMENT DECISION GUIDE

Preface
This document outlines the factors and tools, including the Salesforce Territory Management feature, that organizations should consider when: Organizing and allocating their sales responsibilities Attempting to meet their other territory hierarchy- and territory management-related business requirements

It contains: An overview of the Territory Management feature A decision tree for determining whether this feature fits with your organizations business needs Scenarios showing how organizations might use the decision tree to find the most appropriate territory management solution An introduction to alternative, platform-based territory management solutions

Audience
This document is intended for expert Salesforce architects working on implementations with complex territory management requirements or large-scale sales organization realignments.

Assumptions
This document assumes an understanding of basic territory management concepts, and of Salesforce administration and security.

Introduction
Territory management is the process of allocating sales responsibilities across an organization. Organizations use territory management to: Better cover their sales territories Reduce selling costs Improve customer service Measure their sales teams performance accurately

Organizations use the Salesforce Territory Management feature to: Allocate sales responsibilities based on account-level attributes Define a territory hierarchy, in addition to their existing role hierarchy

Territory Management Decision Guide

The Salesforce Territory Management Feature

Territory Hierarchy Is available by contacting salesforce.com Determines forecasts Supports assigning a user to multiple territories Affects account and opportunity reports Grants access to records regardless of ownership. Users receive whatever access is most permissive across both hierarchies.

Role Hierarchy Is available by default Has no impact on forecasting when territory management is enabled Supports assigning a user to only one role Affects all other reports Grants access to records based on ownership. Users receive whatever access is most permissive across both hierarchies.

See Territory Management Overview in the online help.

The Salesforce Territory Management Feature

When thinking about territory management, its natural to assume that you need to use the Territory Management feature to model your territory hierarchy and manage your territory assignments. This assumption might be true for some customers in some situations, but all customers should consider this feature one option among the rich Salesforce feature set for meeting their territory management requirements. The Territory Management feature is available only with Customizable Forecasting and is not supported with Collaborative Forecasts. If the Territory Management feature is enabled, you cannot use Collaborative Forecasts in your organization. In addition, customers should understand that, once enabled by salesforce.com Customer Support, the Territory Management feature is permanent and cannot be disabled. For these reasons, customers should enable, implement, and validate the feature in a full sandbox environment before turning the feature on in production. See Enabling Territory Management in the online help. When architecting a territory management solution, consider the following topics to determine whether the Territory Management feature is a proper fit with your organizations business requirements. Forecasting Rule source Sales structures Rule complexity Performance

These topics appear with the same names and in the same order in the Salesforce Territory Management decision tree, where they align with the key decision points that organizations should go through when considering the Territory Management feature.

Forecasting
You can manage your forecasts with Salesforce Collaborative Forecasts or Salesforce Customizable Forecasting, or you can manage your forecasts outside of Salesforce altogether. Of the Salesforce forecasting engines, only Customizable Forecasting

Territory Management Decision Guide

The Salesforce Territory Management Feature

is compatible with the Territory Management feature, and you must use and enable Customizable Forecasting to use the Territory Management feature. After enabling Customizable Forecasting, you can forecast only by using Customizable Forecasting or by going outside of Salesforce. Organizations should weigh the benefits of each forecasting option before committing to any one of them. See Enabling Customizable Forecasting in the online help. Note: You do have the option of rolling out the Territory Management feature in Salesforce while forecasting in an external system. Then, during a future release, you can move the forecasting process into Salesforce for tighter integration. If you are planning on forecasting in Salesforce, and Customizable Forecasting does not meet your business requirements, consider contacting your salesforce.com account executive to discuss your assistance options and using an alternative to the Territory Management feature.

Rule Source
Some organizations manage their territory management assignments outside of Salesforce to provide a solution shared across their organization. Using the API to assign territories from an external Single Source of Truth (SSOT) can improve performance speed and allow extremely large enterprise organizations to scale to even larger sizes more smoothly. Because these organizations do not store their assignment rules in Salesforce, they do not need to worry about the complexity of their rules when determining whether to use the Salesforce Territory Management feature. Organizations that manage an external SSOT for territory assignments can decide whether they should use the Territory Management feature based on: Sales structures Performance

Organizations that instead manage their territory assignment rules inside Salesforce can decide whether they should use the Territory Management feature based on: Sales structures Rule complexity Performance

Sales Structures
The benefits of the Territory Management feature depend upon organizations sales structures. Organizations that require a matrixed visibility model can benefit from the Territory Management feature, which allows representatives to belong to multiple territories, or they can leverage public groups to provide similar abstraction. After organizations enable the Territory Management feature, their sales representatives can submit multiple forecasts to multiple managers. Organizations that require sales data to roll up differently than other data within a Salesforce organization can benefit from the Territory Management feature because it allows them to define a separate hierarchy for controlling both access and forecast rollup for sales data.

Territory Management Decision Guide

The Salesforce Territory Management Feature

Organizations that require the ability to scale to extremely large numbers of territories should consider alternative options, such as the teaming- and public groups-based territory management solutions.

Rule Complexity
The Territory Management feature can significantly reduce the complexity of customizations if you: Base your territory management decisions on account-level attributes Some organizations define their territories based on records related to the Account object. If these records are in a master-detail relationship with the account, you can use rollup summary fields to bring attributes to that account. Some customers can use triggers to move related data into accounts, allowing those customers to use standard account assignment rules. However, as the complexity of the relationships increases, performance might degrade, and a customized solution might be necessary. Can use the features account assignment rules Salesforce account assignment rules have limitations regarding the number of rules, and their criteria and complexity. While many customers find the rule structure capability to be sufficient, others push Salesforce beyond its limits. When this happens, a customized solution is required. Note: The Territory Management feature natively supports assignments of only account and opportunity objects. To assign additional objectssuch as leads, orders, or custom objectsyou must make significant customizations of your Salesforce organization.

Performance
Organizations that drive large data volumes with dynamic, frequently changing territories can benefit from the grouping concept of territory management. Grouping can: Increase the performance of the Salesforce sharing architecture, especially when organizations associate multiple representatives with each territory Without the grouping benefit of the Territory Management feature, each member within a territory must be moved individually, which can take significantly more time than moving the entire territory as a unit. For example, if territories have five members on average, using the Territory Management feature would mean maintaining 80 percent fewer object share records. Reduce the burden placed on an organizations administrators When organizations have groups of users sharing the same type of access, managing those users individually increases the maintenance burden. By grouping these users into territories, the territories visibility can shift and be maintained as a unit. The Territory Management feature uses groups to drive sharing of the entire territory team rather than sharing each team member to each account individually. See A Guide to Sharing Architecture.

Territory Management Decision Guide

Salesforce Territory Management Decision Tree

Salesforce Territory Management Decision Tree

You can use this decision tree to determine if you should use the Territory Management feature. The tree features most of the major points you should consider in making your decision, but you might also encounter other factors that make your decision-making process less organized and less straightforward. If you do find yourself unsure about which direction those factors point you in, we recommend contacting your salesforce.com account executive to discuss your options for: Determining the best architecture base, given the current Salesforce features Discussing how the Territory Management feature fits with your organizations territory management needs

Figure 1: Salesforce Territory Management Decision Tree

Territory Management Decision Guide

Scenarios

Scenarios
The following scenarios show how two organizations can use this guides decision tree to meet their territory management needs. Scenario #1: Minimizing customization Scenario #2: Forecasting in an external system

Scenario #1: Minimizing Customization

Setup
Organization A is very concerned about minimizing customization and sticking to the core Salesforce features available for managing territories. After a thorough review, it determines that Customizable Forecasting will meet its forecasting requirements.

Accounts
Organization A has 200,000 accounts, which it frequently realigns, and it bases its account assignments strictly off of account-level attributes. While Organization As territory rule structure can be modeled after Salesforce standard account assignment rules, its named accounts have very complex requirements that cannot be accommodated by those rules. Even though each of its sales representatives exists in only a single territory, Organization A requires a complex visibility and forecasting model for sales data that is not required for the other data in its Salesforce organization.

Using the Salesforce Territory Management Decision Tree

In this scenario, Organization As path through the decision tree unfolds as follows. 1. Are you going to forecast in Salesforce? Organization A wants to forecast in Salesforce and needs to evaluate the forecasting solutions to see which product best fits its requirements. The answer is yes. 2. Does Customizable Forecasting meet your business requirements? Organization A has decided that Customizable Forecasting is a good fit for its forecast requirements, so the answer is yes. 3. Will any representatives need to submit forecasts to multiple managers? Organization A aligns only a single territory for each representative, so the answer is no. 4. Does sales data need to roll up differently than other data? In terms of accounts and opportunities, Organization A has a complex sales structure, but other objects in its system do not have the same complex visibility requirements. Leveraging the Territory Management feature will allow Organization A to manage the more complex hierarchy for the sales organizations object while still leaving a simpler role hierarchy for the rest of the organization. The answer is yes.

Territory Management Decision Guide

Scenarios

Figure 2: Organization As Path through the Salesforce Territory Management Decision Tree

Conclusion
Organization A would benefit from the Territory Management feature.

Scenario #2: Forecasting in an External System

Setup
Organization B has forecasting requirements that are too complex and specialized for Salesforce Collaborative Forecasts or Customizable Forecasting, so it decides to forecast in an external system.

Territory Management Decision Guide

Scenarios

Accounts
Organization B has 400,000 accounts, which it frequently aligns, and it bases its account assignments on: Account-level attributes Certifications that are custom child objects of the accounts Postal codes that are not in contiguous ranges

Organization B has reps in multiple territories, and it forecasts opportunities up to multiple managers. It will use Salesforce as its system of record for account data, and for the territory assignment engine and assignment rules.

Using the Salesforce Territory Management Decision Tree

In this scenario, Organization Bs path through the decision tree unfolds as follows. 1. Are you going to forecast in Salesforce? Organization Bs forecast process is too specialized for the Salesforce forecasting tools, so the answer is no. 2. Do you have a Single Source of Truth outside of Salesforce? Organization B does not have an external source for territory management, so the rule structure and assignment engine will exist inside Salesforce. The answer is no. 3. Does your sales organization need matrix visibility or have sales representatives in multiple territories? Organization B has representatives who need to forecast up to multiple managers. For this forecasting, the representatives will need to exist in different territories within the territory hierarchy. The answer is yes. 4. Is your territorys definition based on account attributes? While certain attributes defining territory management are based on account attributes, related objects might also drive criteria. In some cases, triggers can roll up criteria to the account so that standard rules can be used. However, in this example, we will assume that this rollup is not possible. The answer is no. 5. Do you have dynamic territories with large data volumes? Organization B frequently realigns its 400,000 accounts. This number might seem large, but Salesforce has customers who realign over 60 million accounts. In the Salesforce Territory Management decision tree, we will consider that an organization with more than 200,000 accounts has large data volumes, so the answer is yesthe organization does need dynamic territories with large data volumes.

Territory Management Decision Guide

Platform-Based Solutions

Figure 3: Organization Bs Path through the Salesforce Territory Management Decision Tree

Conclusion
Organization B would also benefit from the Territory Management feature.

Platform-Based Solutions
Even if the Territory Management feature doesnt meet your current territory management requirements, you can still take advantage of the following platform-based solutions. Teaming-based territory management Public groups-based territory management Criteria-based territory management

Territory Management Decision Guide

Platform-Based Solutions

Teaming-Based Territory Management

Teaming-based territory management uses accounts and sales teams to define responsibilities across a sales organization. The teaming solution for territory management works as an alternative to the Territory Management feature when territory assignments affect only accounts and opportunitiesother objects, such as leads and custom objects, do not use teams. Visibility is tied directly to the role hierarchy, so all users within the Salesforce organization share the same visibility hierarchy. If you do your forecasting in Salesforce, the forecast will roll up the hierarchy as well. Note: Account teams and sales teams dont have automated assignment engines or rule structures, so organizations can assign objects manually, through a custom code and engine, or through the API from an external rules engine.

Public Groups-Based Territory Management

Public group-based territory management uses Salesforce public groups to define teams that are associated with accounts, opportunities, leads, or other objects. You can nest public groups to establish a visibility hierarchy separate from the role hierarchy, but the forecast will not roll up the public groups hierarchy. Public groups do not have the same limit of 99,999 groups as the Salesforce Territory Management feature, but two situations can cause performance issues. Extremely large numbers of users are nested into public groups, which are themselves nested into other public groups. Grant Access Using Hierarchies is selected on your custom objects. See Controlling Access Using Hierarchies in the online help.

Because territories generally have no more than 1020 members, the first condition shouldnt present issues for most organizations. Note: Salesforce public groups do not have an automated assignment engine or rules structure, so organizations can assign objects manually, through a custom code and engine, or through the API from an external rules engine.

Criteria-Based Territory Management

Criteria-based sharing territory management uses criteria-based sharing rules to define responsibilities across the sales organization. Because of the limited number of rules per object, only very small organizations should use criteria-based sharing territory management. See Limits for Assignment, Auto-Response, and Escalation Rules in the online help. You can use criteria-based sharing rules to automate the assignment of public groups or role-based teams. When assigning objects to: Public groups, a visibility hierarchy can be created independently of the role hierarchy Role-based teams, all the users of the Salesforce organization share the visibility hierarchy

In both cases, if you use Customizable Forecasting, the forecast will roll up the role hierarchy.

10