When every department works from the same playbook, the results speak for themselves. Large enterprises are increasingly turning to corporate planning tools unify and analyze data across departments.
Some insight shows around 71 percent of these companies use automated planning tools to leverage valuable data across RevOps teams.
Originally built for Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A), these tools deliver significant productivity boosts by enhancing insights into SG&A cost ratios, inventory balances, and workforce productivity—all while offering a strong return on investment (ROI).
However, many organizations try to stretch the capabilities of these tools to manage sales territories and Go-To-Market (GTM) strategies.
Read more: 10 Essential Steps To Sales GTM Planning
Given the substantial investment in platforms like Anaplan, this might seem like a logical choice. But using corporate planning tools for sales territory management often creates inefficiencies that can derail your objectives.
Let’s explore why.
The Annual Sales Plan Is Dead
In sales, the only constant is change. Your annual territory plan may be outdated by the time it’s deployed in the field. Events like mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, promotions, and economic shifts continually disrupt sales operations. The problem with using corporate planning tools for sales planning is that they aren’t built for continuous updates.
Read more: Why Your Team Needs To Say Goodbye To Its Yearly Sales Plan
Typically, when you need to make changes to your sales territories in a corporate planning system, data has to be downloaded from your CRM, adjusted, and re-uploaded, a process that can take weeks. During this time, your CRM data may change, meaning that your territory plan becomes outdated before it’s even implemented.
Territory management software is purpose-built to handle ongoing challenges in sales planning. With automated workflows and policies, territory changes can be made in real-time, without disrupting ongoing sales activities. When, for example, a sales rep leaves mid-quarter, the system can instantly reassign territories, re-route leads, and ensure that the sales team stays focused on their targets.
Read more: The Secret to GTM Success
Why Territory Plans Are Becoming More Complex
Once upon a time, sales territories were carved out based on geography. However, with the rise of remote work and the explosion of data analytics, companies now use a variety of factors—firmographics, customer status, and needs-based data—to define territories. While this approach leads to better outcomes, it also creates complexity.
Read more: SmartPlan: Build Balanced Territories in Minutes
Balancing territories manually or using a corporate planning tool becomes an overwhelming and time-consuming process. Enter AI-powered territory management systems that can automatically generate balanced territories based on your predefined criteria. These systems enable scenario modeling, allowing you to test the impact of different territory assignments and choose the optimal configuration.
Read more: Gain Visibility of Your Sales Capacity to Maximize Scenario Planning
By reducing the time spent on manual planning, these tools help streamline the process, cutting territory planning from months to minutes.
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Real-Time Collaboration is Essential
Traditional territory planning involves numerous spreadsheets, meetings, and back-and-forth with field managers. Sales leaders spend hours in review cycles, collecting feedback, tweaking the plan, and adjusting accordingly. In the age of remote work, gathering timely input from field teams becomes even more challenging.
Read more: Empower Sales Managers with Self-Service Territory Management
A territory management solution eliminates the need for multiple meetings by enabling real-time collaboration within the system itself. Sales managers can access the plan, view changes, and provide feedback without disrupting the GTM strategy. They can also make real-time adjustments to resource allocations directly in the CRM without waiting for the entire plan to be reworked.
Companies that collaborate effectively are significantly more efficient and productive. For example, when using a territory management solution, one organization eliminated 3 planning meetings for each of its 30 field managers, essentially giving back 90 hours of customer-facing time to the Sales team. This is the power of real-time collaboration.
Resources Are Constantly Changing
Territories are dynamic entities. Employees leave, take new roles, or new hires are added to the team, but most CRM or corporate planning tools don’t capture this data. The information typically resides in spreadsheets or on individual calendars, making it difficult to track resource changes.
This challenge extends to commission planning as well. Without accurate tracking of who was responsible for what territory and when, multiple commissions can be paid for the same deal just to satisfy everyone involved.
A territory management system acts as the single source of truth for your entire GTM plan. It logs effective dates for each account team member, ensuring accurate commission payments and eliminating confusion. This also helps plan for the impact of new hires or role changes, making your sales operations more predictable and transparent.
Silos Disrupt the Revenue Engine
The revenue engine requires close synchronization across departments, from Marketing to Sales to Customer Success to Finance. For your lead-to-renewal planning process to succeed, all teams must be aligned on territory assignments, resource allocation, and account handoffs.
Did you know poor data quality, missed opportunities, and inefficient decision-making as a result of siloed teams cost companies almost $13 million per year?
When using a corporate planning tool, changes made in one department may not automatically sync with other systems. For example, if your territory planning system assigns accounts to specific reps but your lead routing system operates under a different set of rules, chaos ensues. This leads to additional work in spreadsheets, IT support, and administrative effort.
A territory management solution ensures that all departments work off the same plan. By linking sales territories directly to lead routing, resource allocation, and customer success functions, you can ensure seamless execution and avoid silos that disrupt revenue generation.
IT is a Bottleneck
Corporate planning tools require months of implementation, often with the help of external consultants or IT teams. These systems are complex and involve customization, data integration, and ongoing maintenance. As a result, making changes to the system often requires IT support, slowing down your ability to adapt to market conditions.
With a territory management solution, you can bypass IT bottlenecks entirely. Most modern solutions offer no-code capabilities, allowing your RevOps team to make real-time updates without involving IT. This flexibility means that your sales operations can adapt quickly and efficiently, without the need for lengthy implementation processes.
Stay Agile with the Right Tools
By adopting a purpose-built territory management system, your sales operations can automate territory adjustments, enable real-time collaboration, and ensure seamless alignment across departments. This leads to more efficient operations and a more productive sales team, giving you a competitive advantage in a rapidly changing market.
Read more: Achieve Agile Territory Management in Large Enterprises
Ready to optimize your sales planning and drive more revenue? Discover how Fullcast’s territory management solution can streamline your GTM strategy and increase agility.
