Question:
Hi! I have created a prospect in CRM and noticed that the role does not involve maintenance of sales related data. Basically, it is just the general data information. When I then try to use this business partner in Opportunity Management, the system complains about the invalid sales org, distribution channel and division which I have entered manually. Being new to using prospect, can someone please advise whether I still have to create a sold-to role for this prospect in order to get my transaction through? or have I missed out some other configuration?
Cheers!
Doremon
Answer:
Hello,
I think you miss something about your organization determination for your prospects.
Are your sold-to coming from R3 or are they created in CRM also directly? I know that if it comes from R3 it should get organization assignement during the tranfer.
In my practice, I don't know very much about direct creation in CRM.
Good luck.
Answer:
This is normal!
Prospect are no CUSTOMERS YET!
meaning that you buy for example an external list of prospects via "Dun & Bradstreet" which you can create in your system as Prospects via the "External list Management' functionality.
You can use prospects in this case within marketing and campaign management, or also can create activities for those prospects, like call related or visiting/meetings and other activities.
(for those kind of business activitiies you do not need any sales related data yet!)
Once your prospects wants/will become a Customer (sold-to) you will maintain him in the BP Role 'Sold-to party'! where you WILL have Sales area data availalble!
You can either RENT or Buy such external lists for prospects, and from a legal point of View, rented prospects need to be deleted after using them a predefined number of times, or after a agreed period...(unless they became a customer).
Hope this sheds a light on the usage and purpose of PROSPECTS
_________________
Davy Pelssers
Independant SAP Consultant CRM/BW/Authorisations
pelssersdavy@hotmail.com
Answer:
Hi Drago,
Thanks for the information. This is pretty much what I thought also. It's just that upon testing creating an opportunity, it only allowed me to use a BP that has sales data that I became unsure about that whole thing. When I tested creating an activity, I can manually assign the sales org data under Organisation, but I cannot do the same for Opportunity. I reckon it has something to do with the organisation determination assigned to Opportunity.
Will have to check it out.
Thanks.
Doremon
Answer:
A Prospect is NOT (yet) a customer, so does not contain any sales relevant Data!
Definition
A prospect is a potential customer.
Use
The BP role prospect is a suitable option for a possible future business partner with whom just a first loose contact has been made. In this way this business partner can be provided with information on a product, for instance.
Structure
For the BP role prospect you can define the name and address and control data.
SALES PROSPECT DATA:
Use
To support your efforts in developing new business, you can store information about sales prospects. Especially important for sales are the information you enter about contact people and the key facts about the prospective customer (annual sales revenue, number of employees, industry sector, and so on). You can use this information to target these sales prospects during a campaign to increase distribution of your products. Detailed information about sales prospects can also help you create effective address lists for direct mailing campaigns.
Activities
You can enter the same kinds of detailed information for a sales prospect as for a customer. The data entry screens for information that has no relevance for sales prospects (for example, billing and output control) are inactive.
When a sales prospect becomes a customer, you can easily upgrade the master record from prospect to customer by changing the account group. For more information, see Changing an Account Group.
You access the transactions for maintaining and displaying sales prospect data from the Business Partner menu.
For the Record::
You were not sure if you could use prospects in opportunities!
Depends!
You can, but in that case you should create for example your own Transaction type (as a copy of the standard opportunity (with or without sales methodology) and remove or at least adjust your Organization Data Determination profile! since this profile which is by default assigned to the standard opportunity TA type, will make that you get errors when entering a prospect (business partner number) in the opportunity, and ask you to fill out a Sales or Service organization!
So hope this will help you solve your problem
regards
_________________
Davy Pelssers
Independant SAP Consultant CRM/BW/Authorisations
pelssersdavy@hotmail.com
Answer:
Hi Drago,
Thanks very much for the information.
Regards
Doremon