So far I shared here what White Space Analysis is adding to Oracle Sales Cloud and how it fits in the Sales Predictor set of functionalities. If you have not read it yet, I propose you go have a look her first, but do not forget to come back here !
Since then, I now finally had some time to dig into White Space Analysis and understand how it works in more detail.
Where to find White Space Analysis (WSA)
WSA is an option to Sales Cloud that appears as a sidetab on the account list. Basically instead of going through a list of account, the WSA is an alternative view for looking at your account from a potential point of view. Additional sidetabs can be added for instance show reports that look into accounts from yet another perspective.
If you do not see this sidetab appear, it probably means WSA has not been implemented or has not been made available for your role.
What WSA actually shows
The matrix view has a max size of 6×6 tiles, but as a salesrep it is not unusual that you have more than 6 customers or that you are allowed to sell more than 6 products. So how does WSA works in such situation? Making the matrix view bigger is not the solution either, as the tiles may become too small to be manipulated with a finger on a touchscreen of a tablet.
Basically it is left up to the user to choose the customers and products he wants to make available in WSA.
User can choose up to 6 customers or products after which the ability to add more disappears.By clicking into the row or column headers, the option to remove a customer or product appears.
Once less than 6 customers or products have been chosen, the ability to add ones appears again
What WSA allows you to do
As you can see on the images above, the WSA matrix is full of links and icons, so let me explain how these can be used:
- Each account name is a link. Drilling into the account will off course bring you to the account overview page from where a more detailed view on the accounts can be found. Maybe it is a good idea too work on one of the product recommendations by adding them into an existing opportunity, or maybe it is better not to pursue a recommendation as there are too many opportunities going on already. Understand what is happening within an account is important, and it is only 1 click away
- The lead icon, represented by a fishbowl in which someone is dropping a business card, indicates a lead exists for the customer-product combination. Clicking on the lead icon will show the related lead details. If multiple leads are available, the last updated one will be shown
- The opportunity icon, represented by a with value loaded briefcase, indicates there is an existing opportunity for the customer-product combination. This can be an open opportunity that is actively pursued, but also a closed/won opportunity. Clicking on the icon shows the opportunity details. If multiple opportunities are available, the last updated one will be shown
- The barcode icon, representing an asset shows that the product as been logged as an asset against the account. Clicking on the asset icon brings you to the asset detail page
- The indication of a rejected recommendation of the lack of potential indicate do not carry a drill down option into more details for obvious reasons
- The green checkmark shows a non-pursued recommendation exists. When drilling into it, the end user has the option to convert the recommendation into a lead, an opportunity or just reject it after which the customer-product combination will show as having no potential or having been rejected
How to add recommendations
Like all other Sales Predictor functionalities, all starts with an analyst building manually recommendation rules, or having the Sales Predictor in Sales Cloud doing an automated analysis in order to find recommendations based on advanced analysis of the available data
Once leads have been made in a production flagged rule folder, they will immediately show on the account detail page for individual accounts as show in the image below
These recommendations do not show automatically in WSA though, an extra step has to be taken to make them available in WSA.
There is an additional step where the recommendations need to be converted in unqualified leads. This is done in order to track whether or not a user rejected, created a qualified lead or converted the unqualified lead directly into an opportunity.
Once unqualified leads have been generated for the recommendations by Sales Predictor, they will show up in their White Space Analysis
