Competitors

When tracking opportunities, knowledge about competition can be the difference between winning and losing.

This knowledge can help the sales team better position their services and products against the competition, thus improving the chances of winning the sale. In this step, we will explore how understanding competition in the opportunity lifecycle.

Additionally, by using competitor records and either identifying that you are competing against them during the sales process or identifying which one you lost the opportunity to, default reports such as the Competitor Win/Loss report for Dynamics 365 for Sales provide a sales team with a great deal of information into which competitors they do well against and which ones they may often lose to.

Consider the competitor win/loss report sort of like a baseball stats report. You can see how many wins and losses you have, including other information such as how much revenue you lost or how many specific opportunities you lost.

This type of insight gives a sales team and sales management better insight into how to better adjust their sales process, change what they’re selling, or even how they’re currently selling it.

Keep in mind that competitors are not just other companies. Reasons for a lost sale could include:

• No Decision (the customer did not purchase the product from anyone; their strategy may have changed and they no longer need your product or service)
• Lost Contact (customer refused to engage with you)
• Deferred to Later Date (the customer tells you it’s not a priority right now)

Gathering this information can help you identify training gaps in your sales process that could be improved to win more sales.

Note: You can document the strengths and weakness of the competitor as well as your products that they compete against. You can also add related sales literature, competitor documentation to educate your staff, and any other documentation that will assist sales staff in competing effectively.

Every opportunity that you lose to this customer will be tracked on the opportunities tab of this entity.

In the following step, you will learn about account teams.