Understanding Territory Management in Salesforce with “Rocket Singh”

Hello Friends,

Sometimes, understanding territory management completely becomes little tricky. So this article will focus on basics of territory management.

Topics Covered:

What is territory management?
Difference between Role Hierarchy and Territory Hierarchy
benefits of our territory management
Difference between territory management and enterprise territory management
Key Concepts of Enterprise Territory Management

What is territory management?

Territory management, as the name says, it is managing the territory as simple as that.

Let’s take example of Hindi movie “Rocket Singh”. In this movie, (Harpreet Singh) Ranbir Kapoor is Salesperson, who is hoping to ace sales.

His boss gave him segment of market to sell laptop parts, then he is responsible to sell laptop parts in that territory. For example, his boss allocated him territory based on location i.e. northern , western region of India then he will be selling laptop parts in those areas.

“Territories can be defined in terms of geographic or market segments, product or product lines, size of customers or by specific customer or prospects”

Some companies can have territories based on location i.e. postal code. Some may have based on industry; some may have based on revenue. Some may have based on criteria that is relevant to their business.

Basically, the criteria for segregating accounts and users based on business needs.

So in the above example, Rocket Singh was allocated territory based on region (northern and western) but he could have also been allocated territories based on size of customer. As he newly joined the company so he could have been allocated smaller customers.

Let’s recap, Territory management is an efficient tool that enables us to share account records with users. So, in other words, territory management is sharing accounts with users (salespeople) based on some attributes of the accounts.

Territory = Account + Users

With Territory management businesses can increase the revenue by making sure that all market segments are covered.

Now that you have a basic understanding of territory management, let’s go one step deeper.

Difference between Role Hierarchy and Territory Hierarchy:

Role Hierarchy is perfect for managing organization structure where one person reports to only one person. In the below image, Sales Manager reports to Junior Boss and Junior Boss reports to Bigg Boss.

Territory Hierarchy is perfect for managing matrix reporting structure where one person reports to multiple persons. In the below image, salesperson reports to Big Boss and Junior Boss.

In the role hierarchy, we are allowed one role as a user. So, if I am in a role hierarchy where it is only regional (example East) then we can use role hierarchy.

But what if I also have an industry vertical, and I need to be in both East, and the Manufacturing? This is the purpose of territories. In territories, we can be given record access based on two or more factors. I can be in one territory that identifies my geographical location, and then industry vertical and Account size (and as many other factors as I need).

Territory management only affects accounts and the standard objects that have a master-detail relationship to accounts. For example, opportunities are included in territory management, but leads are not.

Let’s understand some of the benefits of our territory management.

1.Territory management allows to enable us to expand our private sharing model: Private sharing model means that other users don’t have access to the record so in those cases territory management allows us to expand the private sharing model.

2. Support complex organization structure: Let’s understand in more detail. When we say a territory has accounts and users, it can be one territory can have multiple accounts and multiple users.

In the below image, we can see inside the territory, multiple users and accounts are assigned.

Also, one account can be in multiple territories. i.e. the same account can be assigned to multiple territories.

Example: Account name “Blackbeards” can be part of multiple territories.

3. Multiple forecasts per user, based on territory membership: The same users (salesperson) can be assigned to multiple territories. So, when a user is assigned to different territories, he can generate multiple forecasts for that user based on his territory assignment so he can generate forecast for every territory that he’s assigned to.

Let’s understand with help of Example: Rocket Singh was assigned to multiple territories i.e. northern and western region of India. So now Rocket Sigh can generate sales forecast for every territory he is assigned to.

Now let’s compare, the territory management with the enterprise territory management.

Enterprise Territory Management is version 2.0 of territory management. Previously, before 2015, we had a Territory Management 1.0 and later now we have enterprise territory management with lot better and effective features.
In territory management, if both account and the opportunity owner is assigned to a territory, then automatically the opportunity also gets assigned to the territory. However, in enterprise territory management. We have a much better feature that is called as opportunity territory assignment feature through which we can control that assignment.
Territory management integrates with customizable forecasting. The enterprise Territory management works with collaborative forecasting.

Customizable Forecasting

Since Customizable Forecasting is a prerequisite for Territory Management, we should understand it little bit. Customizable Forecasting helps in estimating how much revenue our company can generate or how many items our company can sell. Customizable forecasting reflects how the organization forecasts its sales. We can forecast on a monthly or quarterly basis.

So, these are some of the key differences between Territory Management 1.0 and the Enterprise Territory. Now let us understand Enterprise Territory Model in detail.