🛍️ CRM
What Is It?
The CRM is an application that allows to manage the opportunities in your Business Pipeline and get accurate sales forecasts.
Key Concepts
Business Pipeline
A Business Pipeline, or pipeline, is a visual representation of the stages involved in a sales process. It is a structured approach to managing a business's sales process and helps organizations to track their progress in acquiring new customers and generating revenue.
The pipeline typically consists of several stages, including lead generation, lead qualification, proposal, negotiation, and closing. Each stage represents a milestone in the sales process and helps sales teams to identify where a lead is in the sales cycle.
The pipeline is valued by the sum of the Expected Value (EV) of the opportunities in contains. Once won, the EV associated to a opportunity disappears from the pipeline so more must be added in order to keep a EV level high enough.
Labor
In a budget, labor refers to the cost of all the employees needed to execute a contract. In Conduite that cost is computed based on the Daily Rates and the number of days needed.
Expenses
In a budget or contract, the expenses (or direct costs) refer to all the non labor costs that are needed to execute the contract. For example:
- Travel and accommodation
- Software licences
- Hosting fees
- Equipment
- 3rd party service
These items are usually charged at cost to the client. Therefore you cannot specify a margin for direct costs.
Key Performance Indicators
The one and only KPI that you need to manage your pipeline is the Expected Value. The objective of your Sales Team is to keep Expected Value to a certain level in order to make sure that you will have enough work in the future.
Expected Value ⭐
Expected Value
The Expected Value (EV) of an opportunity is the value of the opportunity weighted by the probability of winning the opportunity. It is the key metric allowing you to measure the health of you Business Pipeline.
The EV of an opportunity is expected to evolve over time. If won the EV of an opportunity will be equal to the Total Value of the opportunity (probability equal to 100%).
Where
- EV - Expected Value
- $ - Total Value of the opportunity
- %O - Probability of the opportunity
Component of EV
The EV of an opportunity is composed:
- EV Margin - The part of the EV that is margin
- EV Revenue - The part of the EV that is expected to be used to execute the contract if won.
EV Monthly Average
The spread of the EV over the duration (in months) of the contract.
Using The Application
Typical Workflow
- Configure your Business Pipeline in the Setting tab. This is required once when you start using Conduite. It should not change very often.
- Add and update opportunities in the Opportunities tab as often as necessary in order to reflect the most accurate situation of your pipeline.
- Update the dashboards and analyze the performance of your Sales Team.
Structure & Features
Settings
This tab is used to configure your pipeline by defining its stages. You can have as many stages as you want but we recommend having as few as possible.
- Name - The name of the stage
- Type
- Early - Stages that hold opportunities with low probability. These stages are typically not used to compute the actual (Expected) Value of the pipeline.
- Active - Stages that hold the opportunities that you are actively developing. These stages are typically used to compute the actual (Expected) Value of the pipeline.
- Won - Stages that hold the opportunities that you have won. There's usually a single stage of type Won. These stages are typically not used to compute the actual (Expected) Value of the pipeline.
- Lost - Stages that hold the opportunities that you have lost. You can have several Lost stages in order to reflect lost reasons for example. These stages are typically not used to compute the actual (Expected) Value of the pipeline.
- Minimum Probability - The typical minimum probability of an opportunity in that stage.
- Maximum Probability - The typical maximum probability of an opportunity in that stage.
Probability ranges should not overlap. These ranges are used to warn you in case the probability of an opportunity is set to a value that falls outside of the stage's corresponding range.
Opportunities
Fill in all the attributes, even if the value is zero.
This tab contains the list of opportunities in your pipeline. Opportunities are qualified with the following attributes:
| Attribute | Description |
| Name |
The name of the opportunity.
Tip: It is usually good to follow a standard naming convention. Ex: |
| Stage | The stage of the opportunity. |
| Probability (%) |
The probability that best represents your chances of winning the opportunity.
If you input a value that falls outside to the stage range defined in the Settings tab, a validation warning will appear in the shape of a red arrow in the top-right corner of the cell.
Won opportunities should have a probability of 100%. Lost opportunities should have a probability of 0%. |
| Labor (LB) - Value |
The labor value of the opportunity.
Tip: Use a Budget Builder to estimate this number easily and accurately. |
| Labor (LB) - Margin (%) |
The percentage of margin you expect to make on labor on the opportunity.
Tip: Use a Budget Builder to estimate this number easily and accurately. |
| Expenses (EP) - Value |
The expenses value of the opportunity.
Tip: Use a Budget Builder to estimate this number easily and accurately. |
| Start |
The month in which you estimate you will start executing the work in the event you win the opportunity. Use the |
| Duration | The duration, in months, of contract in the event you win the opportunity. |
| Budget Builder | The link to the Budget Builder file for this opportunity. |
| Total Value |
The total value of the opportunity. 💡Computed Field |
| Expected Value (EV) - Total |
The total Expected Value of the opportunity. 💡Computed Field |
| Expected Value (EV) - Margin |
The Expected Value Margin of the opportunity. 💡Computed Field |
We recommend keeping the opportunities sorted according to their stage.
⛑️ Adding An Opportunity
In order to add an opportunity you simply need to:
- Insert a row where ever you want in the table (Right Click > Insert row above / below).
- Copy the formulas for the computed fields.
Validation conditions will be copied automatically.
Dashboard
The Dashboard tab provides charts to analyze the health of your pipeline based on the Expected Value.
Make sure that the dashboards are updated with the latest data from the Opportunities: 🐙 Conduite Addon > ⚙️ Update Dashboards.
Stage Filters
All the charts are filtered by the Stage filters located at the top each section
The Stage filters allow you to specify which stages should be taken into consideration on the charts. Simply check the box for the stages that you want to include in the analysis.
Active Stages Section
This section displays data only for Active stages.
| Chart | Description |
|
Expected Value - Total |
The total Expected Value of the the pipeline. |
|
Expected Value - Monthly Average |
The monthly average Expected Value of the pipeline for the Period. |
|
Period & Period Duration |
The period that the pipeline covers (start of first opportunity to end the last opportunity). |
|
Expected Value per Quarter (Margin, Revenue) |
The distribution of the Expected Value over quarters, with the split by Expected Value Margin and Expected Value Revenue. |
|
Expected Value per Quarter & Stage |
The distribution of the Expected Value over quarters, with the split by Stage. |
|
Expected Value per Stage |
The distribution of the Expected Value by Stage. |
Won Stages Section
This section displays data only for Won stages.
| Chart | Description |
|
Won - Total |
The total amount won |
|
Total Won per Quarter |
The distribution of the won amount per quarter. |
Dashboard Data
This is a read-only (protected) tab. Do not modify it.
This tab provides access to the underlying data used to create the chart in the Dashboard tab. The "ℹ️ Data Source" link located on top of each chart points to the corresponding table in this tab.
Normalized Data
This tab contains the data used to create the pivot tables in the Dashboard Data tab.
Configuration
This tab contains the ID of the Conduite configuration file.
Conduite Addon
Dashboards
Dashboards require data from opportunity to be processed. This menu item updates the Dashboard tab with the latest data from the Opportunities tab. Make sure to trigger action if you want to look at the dashboards after the Opportunities tab has been updated.
Opportunities
This feature allows you to display a detailed financial view of an opportunity. You can search an opportunity by name and get matching results.