Thanks to Field Force Automation, Businesses Generating More Sales than Ever

Automation is rapidly transforming business operations and, more importantly, how people work in the 21st century. Field force automation is one such automation technology that is revolutionizing the way salespersons work and businesses generate sales. By bringing the required data to the point of use, field force automation solutions help sales teams, including field agents and managers, work more efficiently and generate more revenue than what was possible before.

These solutions analyze sales performance and forecasts and automate business operations, such as sales processing, customer interaction tracking, and inventory management. Moreover, this technology allows salespersons and technicians working in the field to document data and information, which is then automatically stored in the main company system, thus giving everyone complete access to real-time data on a web or mobile interface. ‘Real-time’ and ‘automation’ are the main tools used by field force automation solutions for improving the business–customer relationship.

This is achieved by collecting and instantly sharing data on customer requirements, queries, and complaints across the business platform, which allows businesses to continuously communicate with the head office. This way, field force automation solutions help organizations improve their customer service and attain higher efficiency and productivity. Because of this reason, businesses are increasingly adopting these solutions, which is, in turn, pushing up the licensing and subscription rates of the latter.

As a result of the ballooning demand for this technology, the valuation of the global field force automation market is predicted to grow from $1,196.9 million to $9,033.0 million from 2019 to 2030. Furthermore, the market will exhibit an explosive CAGR of 20.9% from 2020 to 2030.

Why Is Adoption of Field Force Automation Solutions Burgeoning?

• Growing Requirement for Automated Salesforce Solutions: Businesses all over the world are demanding technologies that can provide automated control of marketing and sales operations. Moreover, the ability of field force automation solutions to provide automatic client order approvals, lead tracking, automated evaluation of customers’ marketing requirements, and information of all sales operations and other tasks in a single dashboard makes them highly sought-after across the world. Other benefits offered by these solutions are an improved customer experience, streamlined sales processes, enhanced efficiency of salespersons, and higher business revenue.?
• Rising Popularity of Digital Marketing: With the increasing penetration of the internet and the growing usage of social media platforms, enterprises are increasingly integrating digital marketing techniques for expanding their customer base, fulfilling the customized requirements of clients, and gaining a larger foothold in the industry. In addition to this, the ballooning incorporation of advanced technologies such as computer vision, cloud computing, machine learning (ML), and robotics in business operations and the growing digital transformation rate in companies are further augmenting the demand for field force automation solutions.
• Rapid Growth of Retail & E-commerce Industry: The retail & e-commerce industry is one of the primary users of the field force automation technology. Organizations operating in this industry are utilizing this technology for solving various challenges, such as inflation in the costs of raw materials, increasing labor costs, changing customer requirements, and the complexities associated with the supply chain management (SCM) process.

Deployment via Cloud or On-Premises: What are Companies Preferring?

Between the cloud and on-premises modes of deployment, companies have historically preferred the cloud. Moreover, in the future years, the popularity of cloud-based deployment would rise faster than the on-premises-based one, primarily because of the rising integration of the cloud computing technology in enterprises around the world.

This is because this technology provides better data access flexibility and higher data storage capacity and requires lower IT expenditure than conventionally used technologies. The deployment of field force automation solutions via the cloud allows businesses to plan and control field tasks and operations and store essential information on the cloud, which helps them attain higher sales leads conversion rates and provide better a customer experience.

Which Industry Is Currently Largest User of Field Force Automation Solutions

Out of information technology (IT) & telecom, logistics & transportation, manufacturing, retail & e-commerce, healthcare, banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), automotive, education, oil & gas, defense, construction, and power & utilities, the adoption of field force automation solutions has been the highest in the retail & e-commerce industry till now. This is because of the mushrooming number of applications of field force automation, such as filtering information depending on potential leads, understanding customer requirements in detail, gathering real-time client feedback and analyzing it thoroughly, and automating marketing and sales tasks.

Which Region Is Currently Observing Highest Incorporation of Field Force Automation Software?

Across the globe, the usage of field force automation software has been the highest in North America till now. This is credited to the huge investments made by private and public companies in the development of IT facilities and infrastructure, existence of several field force automation solution-developing companies, widespread usage of mobile applications for gathering real-time field data, high popularity of cloud technology, large-scale utilization of advanced technologies such as facial recognition, machine learning (ML), and IoT, in business operations, and high requirement for industrial automation in the region.

However, Things Are Set To Change in Coming Years!

While North America has recorded the highest integration rate of field force automation software over the last several years, Asia-Pacific (APAC) will observe the fastest rise in the popularity of this technology in the coming years. This would be a result of the rising awareness among businesses about computerized operations of field salespersons, increasing industrialization rate, ballooning requirement for the identification of customers’ buying habits and the analysis of this information, and growing need for real-time data usage for forecasting sales.

In addition to this, the rising adoption of cloud computing, need for higher productivity and lower operational costs, and soaring number of start-ups deploying the field force automation technology will push up the subscription and licensing rates of field force automation software in the region in the forthcoming years, with China, India, Australia, and Singapore predicted to observe the highest growth in the utilization of this software.

Thus, it is safe to say that field force automation will become one of the most-sought-after technologies all over the world in the coming years, mainly on account of the rising requirement for automated sales force solutions and their ability to enhance the efficiency and productivity of sales operatives.