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1. Functional Process

Process Overview

The workstream Competitive Insight is part of ‘Sales Strategy’.  A A Competitive Insight summarizes the market intelligence gathered from business interactions with the accounts. It helps building the business context in order to better define value propositions to the market.

A Competitor object record summarizes basic information about a Solvay’s competitor such as its name, its city, its country, etc. Additional market information that involves a competitor can be found in the competitive insights records related to it.

Flow

2. Data Model & security

Main objects

1. Opportunity object is centralizing the information on the opportunity.
2. Opportunity product object is composed of:
   1. Opportunity Product Information: this section contains the general information like the product name, the opportunity link, the targeted first delivery date, etc.
   2. Product Information: this section includes the financial information, like the target unit price, the expected yearly volume, the contribution margin, etc. And also includes the manufacturing plant and shipping plant fields.
   3. Market Segment: this section indicates the market segment information filled in.
   4. Business Potential: this section includes the forecast table.
   5. Negotiation History: This section lists all the changes of target unit price and volume in order to give a history of the negotiations.
3. Product forecast/Business potential is used to fill 5 years of forecast.
4. Negotiation History is use to track the changes of Product information section.
5. Opportunity Team manages the visibility/right of the opportunity.

Related Objects

• Competitive Insights: to update.
• Cross BU lead: allow to link a cross BU lead to the opportunity.
• Involved Accounts: allow to link other accounts to a single opportunity.
• Involved Contacts: allow to link several contact to a single opportunity.
• Open Activities: allow to log activities (task, event).
• Visit Reports Links: allow to link several visit report to a single opportunity.
• Quotes: allow to see quotes generated from the opportunity, or linked to the opportunity.
• Cases: allow to link cases to the opportunity.
• Activity history: display all activities
• Stage History: track all status updates
• Google Docs, Notes & Attachments: allow to attach document to the opportunity.

3.9.3. Competitor Visibility and Righ

The purpose of the workstream Competitive Insight inside the CRM is to improve the process by allowing all stakeholders to enter and review data inside a single tool. This avoids multiple Excel files shared across teams.

Sub processes

• Competitive intelligence non customer related: the aim of the this process is to collect the maximum of information on competitors, competitors products hierarchies, and their capacities.
• Competitive intelligence customer related: the aim is to collect market competitors information for a combination Customer/Product.

2. Detailed Process: Competitive intelligence non customer related

2.1 Data Model & security

Salesforce object model

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All objects are custom objects:

• Competitor

This object is dedicated to build a competitors hierarchy as we have for accounts. The hierarchy has two levels: parent competitor/competitor site (as we have corporate group/account). Each type has its own record type. The competitors are shared among GBUs, as we do for accounts.

• Competitor Product

This object is dedicated to build a competitor product hierarchy as we have for Solvay product. The hierarchy will have 4 levels:

• 1. Competitor Product Level 1: GBU
  2. Competitor Product Level 2: Solvay product level 2
  3. Competitor Product Level 3: Solvay product level 3
  4. Competitor Product Level 4: Solvay product level 4 or Competitor product (depending on GBUs)

Competitor Products levels 1 to 3 are not linked to competitors. Competitor Products level 4 are linked to a parent competitor. 

• Competitor Capacity

This object makes the link between a competitor site and a competitor product to store competitive information on Marketable capacity, capacity variation, etc.

Data Model

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Competitor Visibility and Rights

Competitor Product Visibility and Rights

Capacity Visibility and Rights

2.3. Specific rules & automation

Opportunity Creation 

Any sales rep can create an opportunity, even if not in the Account Team. Opportunity can only be linked to an SAP Customer or a Non SAP Customer . The sequence also includes adding product with details (target price, UoM, etc.), the market segmentation and the forecast. Some rules are implemented in the flow:

• The currency set by default correspond to user's preference.
• The unit of measure set by default correspond to the one of the product selected (formula).

Field History Related List on the Opportunity

Status Management

The following rules have been defined regarding the management of the status of an opportunity

• At creation, the opportunity can be created in any stage of the process
• The opportunity can by-pass one stage, (e.g. move from stage 1 to 3)
• The opportunity can move back in its stages (e.g. from industrial to lab testing)

Opportunity Closing Steps

Different steps must be completed when closing the opportunity:

• If the opportunity is WON, a Customer Service Representative must be defined in the Opportunity Team.
• When the user closes his/her opportunity as LOST, a screen appears and asks for:
  • The Won/Lost review (mandatory), useful to give context and feedback on the opportunity
  • Competition Known? (Yes/No) (picklist – default value = None)
•  If the Competition known is “No”, then the opportunity is saved with the won/Lost review
•  If the Competition known is “Yes”, then the flow moves to a second screen asking to create a Competitive Insight. Once the user saves the competitive insight, the opportunity is saved.

• Finally, after saving, the close date is automatically updated with the today date and opportunity cannot be edited anymore by the sales rep. Plus a notification is automatically sent to the CSR defined in the opportunity team (only if the opportunity is WON)

Opportunity Cloning

The cloning functionality has been enabled, allowing the opportunity owner and the opportunity team member(s) to clone the opportunity as-it-is, with same product information and opportunity team members.

Dummy product Limitation

When the sales rep has selected a product with reference “Product not known yet”, he/she must update the product with a valid product reference before closing the Opportunity as “Closed WON”.Lost Opportunities do not require valid products before being closed. Note that it is impossible to select a dummy product when the opportunity record type is “Product Qualified”.

Contribution Margin

In product information section, 3 fields are used to manage the contribution margin (CM):

• CM Calculation Method: picklist defining in the master method for the CM is in % or in Amount
• Contribution Margin (%)
• Contribution Margin (Amount)

When user defines the CM Calculation Method as “%”, on the field “Contribution Margin (%)” is available. After saving, the system will calculate the Contribution Margin in amount and fill in the field. When user defines the CM Calculation Method as “Amount”, similar behavior is expected. Finally, the CM Calculation Method defined in the Product Information screen will be copied in the business potential table. 

Opportunity Product Level

At opportunity product selection, after having created the opportunity, user is able to select the product from level 4 or level 5.

Opportunity Team Member Creation

Opportunity Team member creation can be done by any sales having edit access to the opportunity. The CSR from the account team will be automatically put in the opportunity team. (oly the CSR corresponding to the GBU handling the Opportunity is set if more than one exist).

There is no synchronization afterward (if the Account Team changes, no automatic modification on the Opportunity Teams).The 2 CSR Roles must be taken : "Customer Service Representative" and "Customer Service Representative (SAP)" and the role must remain the same (if it was SAP on Account, keep it on Opp).

Opportunity Team Management

Opportunity Team management can be executed from the Opportunity Team Related List, either by using the current User’s Default Account Team, or by adding the individuals to the Opportunity Team:

• Add (add users to the Opportunity Team)
• Add Default Team (add default Opportunity Team users)
• Display Access (only system admin can display the type of access the users have)

The user’s default Opportunity Team is a group of users defined by the user that helps the user quickly add multiple people at once.

4. History

Product information section on Opportunity product used to be a custom object because the visibility of the section was different of the visibility of the rest of the opportunity. Today visibility is the same so all fields have been re-created in opportunity product and all features plugged on the previous custom object are/will be plugged on opportunity product directly.

Validation Process 

Competitor and competitor product creation can be done by any user. De-duplication rules are set on the name and on the city, and will notify the users in case of any duplicates found but do not block the competitor creation. 

Once the competitor/competitor product is created, it is sent for approval to the Data Steward of the GBU:

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A picklist “Status” is available on the Competitor page in order to define the status of the Competitor. Following values are available:

• Requested for approval
• Approved
• Rejected

Once validated, the record is locked, and only GBU data steward or system admin can update.

Competitor Email trigger

Saving a new Competitor record after creation triggers a validation workflow and a request email sent to the GBU Data Steward (Queue defined based on the field “GBU”). The email will contain the following text, and will be sent in the formal Solvay template:

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3. Detailed Process: Competitive intelligence customer related 

3.1 Data Model & security

Salesforce object model

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Note: Competitive Insight Header is the same object as Commercial Roadmap Header

We will have 2 different objects for Competitive Insight: one Header which stores all common data (for example product and ship to information, Potential), one Detail which stores all detailed data per competitors

Competitive Insight header, this object will store these main data:

• Competitive Insight Year
• Ship to account
• Sold to account
• Product
• Sales Previous year data
• Total Potential volume of the customer
• UOM
• Ship to KA
  
  

Competitive Insight detail, one line by competitor/product:

• Competitor
• Competitor product
• Estimated Volume
• Estimated Price
• UOM
• Comments
• Created date (workshop)
• Source of information (workshop) mandatory field
• Currency

Competitive Insight Header & Detail Visibility and Rights

A sales representative can see and edit only his own combinations (customer/product) corresponding to his sales and his own combinations corresponding to his opportunities (he is the owner). The Commercial Insight data is GBU restricted.

3.1 Bottom-up exercise on the fly 

Some GBUs collect competitive insights during a bottom-up review. All sales managers have to complete an Excel sheet, comparing the Solvay Sales with the competitor sales at customer/product level. Competitive insight object allow to perform this in the CRM:

• Recurrent Business:

1) Headers corresponding to recurrent business are generated using the sales of the previous year, with an extraction of Analytics. Each combination Ship To / Product will correspond to one header.

2) For each Header the Total Potential (total volume of the product witch could be sold to the customer)  can be filled.

3) For each Header, the user can create one or more line of competitive insight detail.

• Growth Business:

1) At the opportunity creation, a header is generated with the combination Sold To / Product. There is no information on Sales because it's a growth business. If the opportunity product is updated, the header will also be updated. 

2) The total potential can be set as for recurrent business.

3) For each Header, the user can create one or more line of competitive insight detail.

• Prospect:

1) Headers are created manually with a button on account.

2) For each Header the Total Potential can be filled.

3) For each Header, the user can create one or more line of competitive insight detail.

On the fly process

The user goes directly to competitive insight tab. There is a filter section to filter competitive insights headers. In edit mode, the user can add or remove competitive insight detail lines, using the dedicated buttons.

Note: Recurrent business headers are displayed in green, growth business headers are displayed in blue, and prospect headers are displayed in orange. 

From an Account 

When the user is consulting an account, he can easily check the competitive insights associated by clicking on the button Update Competitive Insight. This will open a new window displaying all competitive insights pre-filtered on the account.

Note: Recurrent business headers are displayed in green, growth business headers are displayed in blue, and prospect headers are displayed in orange.  

From a Visit Report 

When the user is creating or editing a visit report, he can easily check the competitive insights associated by clicking on the button Update Competitive Insight. This will open a new window displaying all competitive insights pre-filtered on the account of the visit report.

Note: Recurrent business headers are displayed in green, growth business headers are displayed in blue, and prospect headers are displayed in orange.  

From an Opportunity

When the user is creating or editing an opportunity, he can check the competitive insights associated by clicking on the button Update Competitive Insight. This will open a new window displaying all competitive insights pre-filtered on the account of the opportunity.

Note: Recurrent business headers are displayed in green, growth business headers are displayed in blue, and prospect headers are displayed in orange. 

From an Opportunity Product

When the user is creating or editing an opportunity product, he can easilycheck the competitive insights associated by clicking on the button Update Competitive Insight. This will open a new window displaying all competitive insights pre-filtered on the combination account of the opportunity / opportunity product.

Note: Recurrent business headers are displayed in green, growth business headers are displayed in blue, and prospect headers are displayed in orange. 

From an Quote

When the user is creating or editing a quote, he can easily go to his check the competitive insights associated on the button Update Competitive Insight. This will open a new window displaying all competitive insights pre-filtered on the account of the quote.

Note: Recurrent business headers are displayed in green, growth business headers are displayed in blue, and prospect headers are displayed in orange. 

From an Quote Line Item

When the user is creating or editing a quote line item, he can easily check the competitive insights associated by clicking on the button Update Competitive Insight. This will open a new window displaying all competitive insights pre-filtered on the combination account of the quote/ quote line tiem.

Note: Recurrent business headers are displayed in green, growth business headers are displayed in blue, and prospect headers are displayed in orange.  

4. History

Previously we had an object Competitive Insight designed to store competitive data with mainly text field. We will kill this object as soon as the existing data will be transferred to the new object.

Lightning

Visibility of components is based on Current User GBU, and compared to CIH GBU.

Account/Visit report

In CI tab on Account, and Visit report there is a table of market share by product. The tables are ordered by CIH total potential descending, and filtered on the Account. The user can filter on the Year, using the button "Show Current Year" / " Show Previous year".

• Product: CIH product + CIH total potential
• Detail (Competitor, Estimated Volume, Estimated Price, Incoterm come from the CI detail)
  • CI detail correspoinding to Solvay Sales in 1st position.
  • The 3 main competitor CI details ordered by Estimated Volume descending.
  • If there are more CI details, aggregate them in a line "OTHERS" and sum the Estimated Volume.
• Share of wallet: each portion is calculated with "Estimated volume/Total potential"

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•  Clicking on "Manage CI" you can access the tab Competitive Insights.

Opportunity

In CI tab of opportunity there are two tables

1st is CI opportunity related: for each opportunity product, we display the CI lines associated to the CI header (growth business) linked to the opportunity (Year=Current Year)

2nd is CI region/opportunity product related or region/end use (a switch allows to select the right query)
 

• Opportunity Product = CIH product
• Opportunity region = CIH Region
• Opportunity Sold To <> CIH Sold To
• CIH business type = recurrent business
• CIH year = Current Year OR Previous Year

For each opportunity product, we display the last 5 CI details corresponding, ordered by created date descending (Competitor, Estimated Volume, Estimated Price, Incoterm, created date come from the CI detail).

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Note : Tab Competitive Insights has been removed from the Opportunity record

Quote

In CI tab of quote there are two tables

1st is CI Account/quote line item related: it is the same component as in Account/Visit report but filtered on quote line items.

2nd is CI region/quote line item related:

• • Quote Line item Product (if level 4) = CIH product OR Level 4 associated to the Quote Line item Product (if level 5) = CIH product
  • Quote region = CIH Region
  • Quote Sold To <> CIH Sold To
  • CIH year = Previous Year

For each Quote line Item, we display the last 5 CI details corresponding, ordered by created date descending (Competitor, Estimated Volume, Estimated Price, Incoterm, created date come from the CI detail).

Global Interface

The user goes directly to competitive insight tab:

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1. There is a filter section to filter competitive insights headers (see filter in screenshot above). Click on Search to apply filters.
   
   
2. In Competitive Insights section:
   1. Edit button: the user can add or remove competitive insight detail lines, using the dedicated buttons.
   2. Clicking on the CI Header name, the user can access header details

Note: Recurrent business headers are displayed in green, growth business headers are displayed in blue, and prospect headers are displayed in orange. 

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