2.1 Operational tasks and actors

Sales tasks

Often, the sales tasks are reduced to the pure act of selling. In fact, sales is the link between presales activities and sales order processing.

Sales activities in sales order processing include the following tasks:

• Integration with materials management (transportation, availability check)
• Integration with financial accounting (invoice creation, tracking incoming payments)
• Integration with customer service (processing of maintenance and warranty cases)
• Customs and foreign trade
• Picking, packing, and shipping

Examples of sales tasks

Figure 2.1 shows examples of specific sales tasks. The tasks are already assigned to the two phases presales activities and sales order processing and put into an initial chronological order.

Figure 2.1: Sales tasks (excerpt)

Sales tasks at Global Bike

At this point, it is worth analyzing the sales tasks defined in the Global Bike group: essential presales activities and sales support are provided centrally by marketing departments in Dallas and Heidelberg. The five plants shown in Figure 2.2 are responsible for the sale and shipping of bicycles and accessories locally and independently. The organizational chart shows the responsibilities in both the United States and Germany.

Figure 2.2: Sales tasks at Global Bike

Actors, jobs, positions

Sales activities are performed in the company by various actors. In this context, an actor does not represent an individual person but rather a job for classifying activities that are not linked to a location. Since some of the actors in Global Bike in Germany and the US are required simultaneously, generic jobs are defined in the two subsidiaries and maintained in the SAP system.

If a job—for example, sales manager—is to be advertised in one or more regions, a corresponding number of positions must be created. These positions can then be not yet filled or filled partially or 100% by internal or external employees. Some examples of such concrete positions are Vice President Marketing and Sales, Sales Manager San Diego, and Sales Person 1 San Diego. In the Global Bike group, employees Alex Kuhn, Andrea Marino, and Karim Messalem hold these positions respectively (see Figure 2.3).

Figure 2.3: Jobs and positions at Global Bike (excerpt)

Enhanced sales order processing

Figure 2.4 shows the enhanced sales order processing at Global Bike.

Figure 2.4: Enhanced sales order processing

In contrast to the simple processing of a sales order, this core business process is based on a new customer whose master data must first be processed and for which a sales inquiry must be entered and a quotation created. The sales order is then created with reference to the quotation generated in the presales activities. For the subsequent activities—outbound delivery, picking, shipping, invoice creation, and incoming payment—the process continues in the same way as for classic order processing.

The presentation of enhanced sales order processing assumes the following prerequisites:

1. A business partner master record must be created for a new customer.

2. This customer makes an official inquiry.

3. A quotation is created with reference to this sales inquiry.

4. The customer accepts this quotation.

5. A sales order is created with reference to this quotation.

6. The goods are in stock in sufficient quantity.

7. The goods are picked and shipped without advance payment.

8. No dunning notice is required.

Process variants

In addition, a large number of process variants are possible. Based on the extensive list of prerequisites for even this simple process, we can assume that sales processes have to be controlled very flexibly in practice. Using company rules (called business rules), you can define, for example, the regions in which customers must make advance payments.

The resulting process variant “Sales order with advance payment” would then be mandatory for all relevant countries. Process branches can be used more flexibly than process variants. In business processes, process branches define conditions that are checked during execution. This allows you to decide, for example, how and when invoicing is to take place depending on the country, customer, or sales volume. The following example in the Global Bike group shows the difference between process variants.

Example of process variants

Global Bike offers its goods via two different distribution channels: wholesale and Internet sales. While the twelve long-standing retail customers in the United States are granted customer credit, Internet customers are required to make a down payment or pay for goods in full in advance. Figure 2.5 shows the three corresponding process variants for invoicing after the outbound delivery, as well as the partial or total billing before the delivery of the goods.

Figure 2.5: Process variants for payment time