Market sectors
Use this function to sub-divide the market into several sub-groups for commercial, administrative or technical purposes.
These sectors can then be assigned to a group of sales representatives. For each sector it is possible to define up to two principal sales representatives and different secondary sales reps per role and commercial group for a product.
The assignment of a business partner (BP) site to a market sector can be a way of assigning this BP site to one or more sales representatives.
A market sector groups a population composed exclusively of prospect sites or customer sites. In fact, only this BP type is used to carryout the sales representative assignment.
By business partner site is the combination of a BP code with its address. In this way the management of sectors is applicable not only to prospects/customers in general, but also to each of the sites in this population. This provides an additional level of finesse to the management of the sales representatives assignment to the business partners.
The association of a business partner to a market sector and several sales reps can be calculated either dynamically during the creation or modification of a prospect/customer, or manually for all the population or automatically with a periodicity defined in the recurring task management on the X3 batch server.
These different methods are used to decide the best calculation method as a function of the database composition:
- An X3 folder containing many different sectors with a small business partner base will favor a batch calculation method.
- An X3 folder containing a large business partner base distributed over a few different sectors will favor a dynamic calculation method.
This function also contains options used to determine the preferences for the saving of allocations. It is possible to prioritize the automatically calculated allocations or to save all manually entered allocations.
Prerequisite
Refer to documentation Implementation
Screen management
Use this function to access the operations required for the development and the assignment of market sectors.
You can:
- Enter the list of all the sectors that make up a market
- Enter a summary description of sector nature for mnemonic purposes.
- Define all assignment criteria for a sector
- Indicate the sales representatives responsible for the management of each sector.
- Execute the calculation process and the allocation of sectors and sales representatives.
- View the contents of each market sector.
- View the contents of the population that does not belong to any defined sector.
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Presentation
The sectors included in a market breakdown are listed in the selection panel.
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Fields
The following fields are present on this tab :
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Tab Post
Presentation
It is recommended to enter a description. This will make it possible to understand the precise nature of the sector with greater ease than when only using the definition of the criteria entered in the definition tab.
This list is classed according to the sector code in ascending order. It is also in this order that the system goes through the sector list to calculate an allocation. This signifies that the code assigned to a sector confers a notion of priority to a sector compared to the other sectors.
For example, if a prospect/customer fulfills the conditions that allow it to be legitimately assigned to two different market sectors, it will be assigned to the first sector found in the list.
Viewing and allocation of sectors from a Business partner record
You can access the market sector inquiry and allocation window from any Business partner management function (Business partner, Prospects, Customers, Suppliers, Sales representatives, Carriers).
You can open this window by clicking Market sector from the Actions icon available on each address code line, from the Address and Business partners tabs.
This menus is always available in the Prospect and Customer functions.
In the other Business partner (BP) functions, this menu is only available for the prospect or customer business partners.
Allocation of a market sector
The first section of this window is related to the market sector.
If a sector is already associated with a business partner site, it is possible to view the sector description.
If no sector is entered, it is possible to assign any sector either manually via the sector selection window or via a zoom on the sector management function.
Sales representative allocation
Once a sector allocation is complete, you can proceed with the allocation of the sales representatives for the business partner site.
You can assign up to two main sales reps for each business partner site.
In addition to the principal sales reps, it is also possible to enter different secondary sales reps whilst at the same time specifying their role with respect to the BP site. The role of each secondary sales rep can be refined with the notion of a commercial group for the product.
If the allocations entered concern the default site for the BP, these will automatically be carried over to the prospect/customer record. The Sales rep fields are then updated based on the allocation performed in the window corresponding to the market sector. The Secondary sales rep table is also updated in the same way.
Otherwise, if the modifications concerning the principal or secondary sales reps are carried out directly in the prospect/customer record, they are transferred to the sales rep allocation for the BP default site.
This type of modification will always erase the automatically calculated allocations.
If a sector is entered in the allocation window, it is possible to obtain the sales reps entry in the allocation database described in the specified sector record. Click the Allocate according to sector option from the Actions icon available on the Primary sales rep fields of the allocation window.
Ship-to customer management
The market sector management is used to take control of the automatic allocation of the sales representatives to the population of the ship-to customers.
In fact, this population can itself contain a variable number of sales representatives as a function of the value of the activity code RED.
If the MSTDLV - Synchronize ship-to customers parameter (TC chapter, MST group) is set to 'Yes', the system behavior is the same as described in the following lines.
A customer record can contain a different number of sites and ship-to customers. A customer can for example may have five different addresses and only two ship-to customers.
As a consequence, during the automatic allocation of a sales representative to a customer site, the system will verify the existence of any corresponding ship-to record. If necessary, this allocation is also transferred to the corresponding Sales representative field(s) for this ship-to customer. On the other hand, each new manual allocation or modification of the sales representative to the ship-to customer is passed on to the customer site allocation.
Specific cases for the default site of the customer:
The default site for a customer record infers the existence of not just two linked allocations, but three that can be different :
These three allocations can be named under the following labels:
- The allocation of the customer site
- The allocation of the customer
- The allocation of the ship-to customer.
In this specific case, the system adopts the following behavior:
If the KEEPREP - Manual reps. Allocation parameter (TC chapter, MST group) is set to 'Always replace', the three allocations are always the same. In fact, they will be defined by the system and will always comply with the allocation dependent on the associated market sector.
If this setup contains a different value, it is then possible to obtain distinct values for these allocations.
In fact, it can be essential to have available the possibility for the default ship-to customer to have an allocation of sales representatives different to that defined in the customer record.
For a single site, it is possible to modify an allocation from three different locations:
- Market sector allocation window
- Management tab on the customer record
- Default ship-to customer record.
Sales representative modification from the market sector allocation window
When the market sector allocation window is open for the default customer site and a manual modification of the sales representatives is carried out here, this new allocation is automatically transferred to both the customer record and the default ship-to customer record. These three information storage sources then reflect the same information (insofar as the values of the different activity codes used are themselves also identical).
Modification of the sales representatives from the Management tab on the customer record.
When the sales representative allocation is carried out directly in the customer record, this is automatically carried over to the default customer site. These two items of information are thus always identical.
As far as the the ship-to customer record is concerned, the system asks the following question to the user:
Do you want to update the ship-to customer allocation?
- If the answer is negative, the new allocation will not be transferred to the ship-to customer.
- If the answer is positive, the new allocation will be transferred to the ship-to customer.
Modification of the sales representatives for a ship-to customer.
When the user manually modifies a sales representative allocation in the default ship-to customer, this modification is not carried over anywhere. In fact, this type of modification is considered as an extra customer allocation necessary for the correct functioning of the Sales modules functionality. In this case, the default customer site allocation remains when it is identical to that of the customer.
On the other hand, in the absence of the previous allocation, all new allocations carried out manually from the ship-to customer are carried over to the customer and default customer site.
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Fields
The following fields are present on this tab :
Description
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Tab Definition
Presentation
Use this tab to create an allocation criteria table and, if needed, enter a more complex mathematical formula.
Each criteria is made up of:
- A criteria combination operator. This can be selected from the following list: 'And', 'Or', 'And not', 'Or not'
- One of the three table names making up a prospect/customer record, that is to say: 'Information relative to the business partners', 'Information relative to the prospects/customers', 'Information relative to the address'.
- The name of the field coming from one of the three tables specified above.
- A condition dependent on the selected field.
- The value for the field defined as a criterion.
This grid can have up to 25 combined lines.
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Fields
The following fields are present on this tab :
Grid Criteria
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Formula
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Block number 3
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Action icon
This menu is used to display the list of fields from a specified table.
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Tab Assignment
Presentation
Use this tab to specify the sales representatives to be assigned by the system when a prospect/customer has been automatically integrated into the relevant sector.
For each sector, you can assign up to two primary sales representatives and multiple secondary sales representatives. Each secondary sales representative can carryout a specific role with respect to a prospect/customer. The following list contains examples of some of the more frequent roles: 'Sales manager', 'Product expert', 'After-sales technician'…
In addition to the role, the mission of a secondary sales representative with respect to a business partner can be refined with the notion of the sales group of the product. Thus, a single prospect/customer can have several product experts or After-sales technicians for certain specific product ranges.
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Fields
The following fields are present on this tab :
Primary sales rep
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Grid Secondary sales reps
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Specific Buttons
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The following fields are included on the window opened through this button : Block number 1
Block number 2
Close This button is used to copy the record definition from or to another folder. |
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Functions/Market sector validation
Functions/Generation of sectors
Once the list of the sectors and the properties for each sector is defined, it is possible to proceed with the global allocation of the prospect/customer database with the sectors and the sales representatives in a single operation.
Manual regeneration
To launch the generation processing, click Functions > Generation of sectors.
Before the generation, make sure you have entered the two following parameters:
- The first parameter relates to the allocation of the manually-entered sectors: KEEPMST - Manual sector assignment (TC chapter, MST group).
If this parameter is set to 'Always retain' or 'Replace on request', it displays the value 'Always retain'.
If this parameter is set to 'Always replace', this same value is used in the sector generation window.
- The second parameter applies to the allocation of the representatives entered manually: KEEPREP - Manual reps. assignment (TC chapter, MST group).
If this parameter is set to 'Always retain' or 'Replace on request', it displays the value 'Always retain'.
If this parameter is set to 'Always replace', this same value is used in the sector generation window.
The 'Always retain' option indicates to the system that a manually-entered allocation must never be replaced by a calculated allocation. If the 'Always replace' option is selected, the prospect/customer base resulting from the generation will be strictly the same as the sector definition previously entered.
It is possible to select a different behavior for the sector and sales representative allocation.
Any modification of the information relative to the primary or secondary sales representatives will be considered as a manual allocation of sales representatives.
Once the two options have been defined, click Launch to trigger the generation processing.
On exiting the generation, the system specifies the number of new allocations of the sectors and sales representatives carried out. This number can be negative if a redefinition of sectors has lead to an increase in the number of prospects/customers without sectors.
Once the processing is complete, click Log file to check if potential errors occurred during the processing.
Sector regeneration using the batch server
A batch task called CRMMST and designed to perform the market sector regeneration is delivered as standard. This task is accessible in the dictionary once at least one market sector has been defined in the market sector management function.
Using this task, you are free to choose from the two following formulas, determining how the regeneration of sectors will be run:
- Manual and periodic submission of the CRMMST task for execution.
- Define a recurring task.
During the validation of the submission of the CRMMST task, a setup entry window identical to that presented for manual regeneration is displayed.
Functions/Sector inquiry
Click this action to view the contents of a market sector.
This inquiry is carried out by group of 50 business partner sites.
Use the Number of BP sites in the sector field to indicate the global volume of the current sector.
On each table line, click Detail from the Actions icon to access the BP record and view all the related characteristics.
Click Prev. sector to display the contents of the previous sector without closing the current window and opening a new one. You can thus do an accelerated check of the global volume for the various sectors defined.
Click Next sector To display the content of the sectors consecutive to the current one.
Functions / Out of sectors
Despite the more or less numerous and precise definition of sectors, it is always possible that several BP sites escape the allocation carried out and are found to be not assigned to any sector. These sites are difficult to identify because it is necessary to verify the totality of the prospect/customer database and the allocation of each to a sector.
Click this action to solve this issue.
You can thus quickly identify all the prospects/customer sites which are not assigned to a market sector.
When opening this window a pending message is displayed whilst the system moves through the database searching got all the non-assigned sites. Once the overall verification is complete, the following information is available:
- The percentage of BP sites without sectors compared to the total number of prospects/customer sites.
- The total number of prospects/customer sites.
- The total number of prospects/customer sites not assigned to a market sector.
- The BP sites without sectors inquiry is carried out in groups of 50.
The sector type definition ZZZZZZ "catch all" is used to obtain a rate for the blank returns.
Limitations
Import of market sectors is not supported by Sage X3.
Error messages
In addition to the generic error messages, the following messages can appear during the entry :
Field name incorrect
This message is displayed when the user attempts to enter a sector definition criterion based on a field that does not exist in the database.
One or more opening brackets are missing.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. It indicates that the user has forgotten to enter one or more opening brackets.
One or more closing brackets is missing.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. It indicates that the user has forgotten to enter one or more closing brackets.
One of the bracket pairs is empty.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. It indicates that the user has forgotten to enter a criterion number in an existing bracket pair.
The criteria codes must be enter in ascending order only.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. It indicates that the user has made a mistake in the order entry of the criteria numbers that make up an expression.
One or more criteria numbers are missing.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. It indicates that the user has forgotten to enter one or more criteria numbers defined in the first grid of the tab.
The same criterion number has been entered several times.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. This indicates that the user has entered a single criterion number more than once.
Certain numbers do not correspond to the criteria.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. It indicates that the user has entered one or more criteria numbers that do not exist in the first grid in the tab.
The definition must start with a bracket.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. It indicates that the user has forgotten to start the expression with an opening bracket.
The definition must end with a bracket.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. It indicates that the user has forgotten to end the expression with a closing bracket.
One or more operators are missing.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. It indicates that the user has forgotten to indicate an operator between certain criteria numbers.
Certain operators are incorrectly positioned.
This message is displayed on exiting the operation key Grouping of criteria field. It indicates that the user has entered one or more operators in a position which does not allow their correct exploitation.
Error during the saving of the market sector allocation.
This message appears in the displayed log on completion of the market sector generation process. It indicates that the sector allocation save transaction has failed. For information and to help the understanding of the cause of this error, this message is accompanied by the code for the record to be allocated.
Error during the saving of the sales representative allocation.
This message appears in the displayed log on completion of the market sector generation process. It indicates that the sales representative allocation save transaction has failed. For information and to help the understanding of the cause of this error, this message is accompanied by the code for the record to be allocated.
The specified sector does not allow the determination of the allocations.
This message is displayed when the user carries out a manual allocation of a sales representative on an erroneous market sector basis.