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The advantages and disadvantages of sales force automation.

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Introduction.

Sales Force Automation is a technique of using software to automate the business tasks of sales, including order processing, contact management, information sharing, inventory monitoring and control, order tracking, customer management, sales forecast analysis and employee performance evaluation(Thomas, M.S & Michael, S.M 1996). This revolution that is sweeping through society is changing the nature of selling. For last 150 years, traditional selling process bases on the two ways communications, that is salespeople to customers, customers to salespeople. Such face-to-face selling or in-person selling can require a lot of time, energy, and expense, but the payoff can be tremendous. Despite all of the new high-tech
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However, the major disadvantage of personal selling through face to face communication is the cost of employing a sales force. Sales people are expensive. In addition to the basic pay package, a business needs to provide incentives to achieve sales, such as commission, bonus arrangements, and the equipment , such as car, travel and mobile phone, to make sales calls (Personal selling, 2005). Moreover, there is not a cost-effective way of reaching a large audience in now faster society. A sales person can only call on one customer at a time. In other words, salespeople need to go to the prospective customer in order to demonstrate or illustrate the particulars about the product or service. For reaching a large customer; salespeople will be taking a lot of time to achieve the goal (The Importance of Good Communication, 2005).

Sales force automation- SFA.

Following by the rapid and continuous drop in the price of computing and the businesses are increasingly global that joined with advances in communications technology; the structure and process of selling have altered the competitive environment (David, G. H & Mckee, D 1999) . Technology makes salespeople more effective and productive because it allows them to provide accurate and current information to customers during sales presentations. Sales force automation (SFA) implies that technology can be used to speed up previously inefficient operations of a company, which the
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