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Overview

In this section, you will find information about how to create and manage Account Plans in Salesforce, in particular:

  • Objectives of the module
  • Confidentiality settings
  • How to create an Account Plan
  • How to associate an Account to an Account Plan
  • How to add a colleague to an Account Plan
  • How to create a milestone for an Account Plan

 

Link with Commercial Excellence

In practice, the Account Development Plan functionality can be used in different ways depending on the GBU needs. For example, you may use it to manage Key Accounts or to manage customer accounts that you intend to grow as Key Accounts for your GBU or for Solvay.

ILLUSTRATION OF KEY ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT (LINK WITH COMMERCIAL EXCELLENCE)

Key Account methodology is dedicated to Accounts with growth potential, including product development & innovation, for which a dedicated Strategic Plan (KAP), aligned with the customer/market Roadmap, is required for the development of customer focused value propositions. It aims at developing pro-actively solutions for customers that lead to partnership beyond transactions from the desire to understand the customers’ business, their opportunities and challenges, their customers and marketing stakes.

Key Account Managers (KAM) are responsible for developing strategic relationships with their KA, defining & implementing a Key Account Plan (KAP), committing in mid-term business plan derived from the KAP to achieve annual target with regards to sales, volume & contribution margin, etc. 

--> Salesforce can support Key Account Managers in these objectives.

Concerned profiles:

     ALL

Table of content

 

Step By Step

Definition & Objectives

Account Plan process covers the creation and management of Account Plans in Salesforce, mainly for key accounts, but also applicable for standard accounts. An Account Plan summarizes the strategy set up for specific accounts or groups of accounts. Each Account Plan includes milestones detailing the actions to execute in order to achieve the plan.

Once the account plan is created and approved, the execution of the strategy and follow-up of milestones is entirely managed in SFDC. The Account Plan is regularly updated to remain a living document.

The following information can be found in the Account Plan page:

1.Information: this section includes the general information like the owner, the Account Plan Name, the visibility, the GBU, etc.
2.Account Plan Session Stage: This section displays the Account Plan Stage and the validity date
3.(Key) Account Profile: this section define the main market, main challenges and locations
4.Partnership with Solvay: this section displays some financial information
5.Solvay’s Project Objective with KA: this section lists the strategy and the 3 key initiatives
6.Business Plan: this table covers the sales, contribution margin and share of wallet projection for next 5 years.

Solution rules

Confidentiality

An account plan can have different levels of confidentiality:

•GBU Restricted: Your Account Plan will be restricted to your GBU CRM users
•Account Plan Team : Your Account Plan is limited to the users identified in the “Account Plan Team”
 

Demo

Create an Account Plan

To create his Account Plan, David starts from the home page and clicks on Create New and then on Account Plan
He now can start filling the information in the different fields.

  


He now can start filling the information in the different fields.
A field Visibility is available to define who can view the Account Plan. 3 options are foreseen:
•“Shared”: it means the Account Plan is visible by all the users in Salesforce
•“GBU restricted”: it means only the users in the field GBU are able to see the Account Plan
•“Account Plan Team”: only the colleagues added in the “Account Plan Team” will be able to view the Account Plan

 

•David will let the Account Plan shared

He now can start filling the information in the different fields.


•The field Account Plan Stage is used to define the stage. Following values are available:
•David will define the stage as Pending Approval
Among the fields available, the field Strategy is key in order to summarize in a few lines the strategy.

 

Next to this field, 3 key global initiatives can be defined to explicit global actions

 

 

David has now created his Account Plan. He must not forget to also define the Business Plan 

 

 

To define the business plan, David double-clicks on each value in order to edit it. Once the table finished, he clicks on Save.
Special Chem users use the Commercial Roadmap module, do not have to update the business plan because it is automatically synchronized with the Commercial Roadmaps set on the associated Accounts.

According to Commercial Excellence Guidelines, Business Plan allows to anticipate revenues for current year + 5 years.

 

To add another year to the Account Plan click on the button Add Following Year. After this a new year is generated.

 

Associate Accounts to the Account Plan

 

To associate accounts with his Account Plan, David opens the Account Plan he created
He hoovers the Account Plan Association and clicks on New Account Plan Association
David uses the look icon to search the accounts in the system
In the new search window, David searches for Bayer accounts part of the strategy and then selects the account.

Once selected, David clicks on Save & New to quickly add another account

David knows it’s important to associate all the accounts to the Account Plan, so that any user opening an account is aware of the Account Plan and can consult the strategy defined.

It might take time to associate lots of accounts, but this step is only to be done once, so be patient!


 
Once the full list of accounts associated, David can consult the account and see the accounts in the related list.

When a user links an opportunity to an account plan:

  1. If the account of the opportunity is already in the Account Plan Association nothing is done.
  2. Otherwise, the account of the opportunity is automatically added to the Account Plan Association.

 

 

Once the Account related to the Account Plan, the relationship is available at account level. This relationship will be fully public, meaning David can consult any relationship in the system, whatever the visibility of the Account Plan.
•Nevertheless, he might not be able to open some Account Plans depending of his access.

 

It is possible to create a hierarchy of Account Plan using a parent Account Plan with a region.

    • On the parent, the child Account Plans are displayed in a dedicated related list.

 





 

David’s GBU Data Steward has another possibility to associate Accounts to the Account Plan. From the Account Plan Association related list, he clicks on New Multiple Plan Associations.

 

 

12He selects the Corporate Group and the GBU to add only the Accounts having activity with the GBU (ie, Market Segmentation for the GBU) and  clicks on Save.

 

Done! The GBU Data Steward can see the list of all related opportunities for accounts linked to the Account Plan and Opportunities directly related to an Account Plan in a dedicated section in the page.

This list can be filtered by GBU and/or BU and/or Region and/or Stage (Open/Closed Won/Closed Lost) – those filters are recorded on the record, no need to reselect them when opening a previously opened and filtered record.

Add Colleagues to the Account Plan Team

To associate accounts with his Account Plan, David opens the Account Plan he created
He hoovers the Account Plan Team and clicks on New Account Plan Team
David uses the look icon to search the Account Managers in the system.
In the new search window, David searches for Pedro and then clicks on his name.

Once selected, David clicks on Save & New to quickly add another account

A field Access defines the level of access Pedro will have:
•Read/Write: Pedro will be able to edit the Account Plan information
•Read Only: Pedro will only have visibility on the Account Plan (in case David has put the Account Plan as restricted to the Account Plan Team Members)
Once the full list of Account Managers associated, David can consult the Account Plan and see the Account Managers in the related list.

David can define some Contacts that are related to the Account Plan.
Some information such as Job Department, Title, Function, Contact Role, and Description are automatically displayed from the Contact.

 
 

Create a milestone for the Account Plan

To create a milestone in his Account Plan, David opens the Account Plan he created
He hoovers the Account Plan Milestone and clicks on New Account Plan Milestone
David enters now the information for the milestone
•The field Status allows David to manage the milestone status during the Account Plan period. The available status are the following:

Once completed, David clicks on Save and checks the information entered.
•A field On Time defines with traffic light the status of the milestone:
Status = Complete
Status = Delayed & Due Date > 2 Months
Status = On Schedule & Due Date < 2 Months
Status = Delayed & Due Date > 2 Months
Status = On Schedule & Due Date < Today
Once the full list of Milestones are created, David can consult the Account Plan and see the Milestones in the related list.

Displayed milestones created in the previous year and 3 next Year Quarters are visually displayed in a dedicated section on the page.

There is a button to toggle between Open Milestones and All Milestones
(open + closed).

The displayed color depends on the status of the Milestone.


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