In today's highly competitive and volatile marketplace, the ability to effectively manage the sales pipeline can have a profound impact on a company's financial health. An inaccurate sales forecast can produce misguided corporate planning, which ultimately hurts profitability.

This white paper will discuss some common factors that impact a company?s ability to effectively manage the sales pipeline and focuses on the following process and organizational best practices that can help companies overcome their sales challenges and establish a critical competitive advantage:

• Have a clearly defined sales methodology.
• Capture quantitative and qualitative information about each opportunity.
• Focus on performance and effectiveness metrics.
• Develop forecasts from multiple perspectives.
• Translate forecasts into action.