Strategising is the backbone of successful sales performance and territory management goes hand in hand with it. Territory management is a series of factors and decisions that lead to the formation of manageable regions from larger geographic areas. There are brands that may go ahead and split these territories based on the type of product they are offering, length of sales cycle or sales rep experience and expertise.
One of the most important goals of defining a sales territory is to focus on a specific market, utilising a strategic system that provides your sales force with the resources to close deals successfully. For this, you must first decide on a tool or software – a territory management tool – to help you.
Territory management tools should include:
- Organisation by geography, account, product category, sales rep expertise, and any other factor that helps with better customer service and sales
- Market analyses and customer analysis
- Effective territorial visualisation via a reliable mapping tool
For example, if you are a beverage brand, you would first want to identify all the available retailers who sell beverages in an area, the kind of footfall they have, the consumer demographics in their area, among other factors. This is before you split up the area into territories to assign to your sales force.
You should be looking for a territory management tool that is able to assist you in expanding your territory by onboarding retailers who are potentially capable of good sales. This would require the right allocation and utilisation of resources, something that an ideal territory management tool should be able to effect. For existing territories, the app should be able to facilitate increased order volumes and ticket sizes and enhance coverage efficiency for maximum territorial output.
From efficiency to profitability to proactive actions to burnout prevention, territory management, when done right with the right tool, can uplift your sales performance. On the contrary, not having a territory management tool at hand could mean the difference between successful and failed sales.
Before we bring you the list of the best territory management tools, let us first discuss what makes territory management important to brands.
What Makes Territory Management Critical To Sales Operations?
Defining territories opens up the opportunity for sales managers to schedule effective beat routes, reduce time wastage, and set definitive sales goals for sales teams. Territory management is responsible for enhancing morale, teamwork, and sales. It involves a group of customers/retailers or regions covered by a specific sales rep or team.
Apart from geographic reliance, territories are also determined by sales potential of an outlet/store. The goal of territory management is to maximise revenue via effective resource allocation. A territory that is underserviced will have insufficient sales reps handling it, leading to potential downturn in sales. This is because sales reps working in these territories are spread too thin for optimal operations and as a result pursue less leads and spend too little time with customers.
Defining territories requires you to define:
- Your product type
- Your competition
- Distribution channels and transportation
- Existing workload of the sales team
- A territory’s potential for sales
- Individual performance of sales reps to decide the type of territory they are going to be assigned
On the other hand, over-saturating a territory with sales reps means everyone has less than optimal work and there is a significant opportunity cost to consider here. This leads to a lack of representatives where they are actually needed that further leads to lost sales.
Effective territory management can lead to:
- Better customer service and market coverage – leads to greater sales and customer loyalty
- More defined responsibility for a specific area – leads to motivated sales reps, accurate performance evaluations, and reduced employee attrition
- More control over areas – leads to better incentive planning for staff and also a more effective territorial cost allocation
Top Territory Management Tools
1. BeatRoute
BeatRoute enables intelligent territory management, taking into account factors like business potential and outlet type, and in turn, ends up saving time and money for you. When territories are assigned to sales reps, they are less prone to go off-route, miss stops, and feel overwhelmed.
As one of the best territory management tools, BeatRoute helps you identify the stores that are most in-line with your product (viable opportunities), create territories based on this data and generate accurate cost estimates of required resources. This can be done with existing or new data, and accordingly, specific beat plans for specific sales reps for specific territories can be formed for maximum efficiency.
In addition to store prioritisation and geo-tagging, brands can also use the BeatRoute platform to make precise calculations for the number of on-field representatives and vehicles necessary for total territorial coverage. Brands enjoy high ROI by mitigating or even eliminating resource wastage by allocating resources appropriately and pursuing every sales opportunity.
Features
- Store profiling and prioritisation
- Cost estimation
- Beat planning
- Resource management
Pros: Modular, scalable, works offline in zero internet areas
Cons: Not suitable for inside sales, not for ecommerce brands
Industry: FMCG, Consumer Goods, Building-materials, and Manufacturing
Founded: 2014
Free trial or demo: Free demo
2. Badger Maps
Badger Maps provides users with the tools to see their customers and use effective filters to sift through customers by simply uploading a Microsoft Excel file or connecting an existing CRM with Badger Maps and importing customer details.
As Badger Maps allows brands and sales reps to clearly see their assigned territories, they are able to manage territories far better. Users can see the stores that need follow ups, stores that are high priority and those that have recorded excellent sales recently. Badger Maps also provides tools for account management, optimal route creation, and a check-in ability that provide up-to-date data on every customer.
Features
- Route optimisation
- Filtering for cross sell and up sell
- Custom check-in reports
- Easy lead detection
- 100% encrypted
Pros: Live traffic, multiple mapping software support, follow-up reminders, CRM support
Cons: Steep learning curve for some, one filter can be applied at a time, no team management feature
Industry: Apparel, Technology, Manufacturing
Founded: 2012
Free trial or demo: Both
3. Spotio
Spotio provides one of the most reliable territory management tools that allows you to demarcate between territories, assign them to specific sales reps and generate insights that drive growth for your brand. Sales managers and brands are given the ability to define territories in terms of state, county, city or zip code or by simply drawing on a map. Brands can allocate sales reps appropriately and prevent unwanted schedule or route clashes between reps to ensure smooth operations and results. Sales teams have complete clarity on who covers what and brands also get to set up hierarchies for permissions to give more visibility to managers.
Spotio ensures:
- Transparency on territorial performance
- Data to generate insights to improve territorial efficiency
- Reporting on areas of improvement with the help of data visualisation
Features
- Task automation
- Route planning
- GPS tracking
- Reports
- Customer mapping
- Lead generation
Pros: Accurate sales activity data, software reliability, transparency
Cons: May not be good for B2B sales, limited territory management capabilities, not highly customisable, reporting may not be as in depth as some of its competitors
Industry: Solar, Medical, Home improvement, Food & Beverage, Distribution
Founded: 2014
Free trial or demo: Free demo
4. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM provides a complete and all-inclusive view comprising successfully closed deals and detailed sales predictions of territories. Users can see which teams are performing optimally and identify the top performing sales reps. Interactive reporting enables brands to take data-based intelligent decisions.
With Zoho CRM, seamlessly share customer accounts, find profitable areas, allocate adequate resources, and provide top-notch customer satisfaction.
Features
- Lead management
- Deal management
- Workflow automation
- Sales forecasting
- Territory management
Pros: Affordable, fully automated, multiple integrations, user friendly
Cons: Custom fields are limited, free plan doesn’t come with integrations
Industry: Financial services, Retail, Insurance, Real estate, Non profit
Founded: 2005
Free trial or demo: Free demo
5. Maptive
Maptive is among the top territory management tools that focuses on data and eliminates guesswork or anything ambiguous to ensure your territory management is top-notch. Brands can create custom maps for their sales territories for appropriate allocation of resources based solely on empirical data. Territory maps are available to users at any time because they are cloud based; sales teams can view, share or communicate on the app. Brands get access to territory-specific data and use it to identify opportunities and analyse problem areas.
Maptive enables users to:
- Accurately map store locations for building territories
- Easily split territories on the basis of zip code, city, state, etc.
- Analyse territorial data to identify areas of improvement and elevate the performance of areas that aren’t achieving their targets
Features
- Heat mapping
- Lasso
- Drawing tool
- Distance calculation
- Map customisation
Pros: Dependable support, enterprise level security, wide coverage, cloud based, mobile friendly
Cons: Expensive, pay occasionally freeze
Industry: Banking, Retail, Non profit
Founded: 2013
Free trial or demo: Free trial
6. Maptitude
Maptitude offers a wide range of features, including detailed maps, comprehensive demographic information, and intuitive tools, all aimed at enabling organisations to dissect and grasp the significance of geographic factors. With Maptitude, you can craft visually captivating maps, represent data from spreadsheets, project population estimates, pinpoint customer locations, establish customised territories, produce heat maps, and explore many other capabilities. It’s reliable among territory management tools and trusted by many Fortune 500 companies.
Features
- Optimised sales territories, vehicle routes, and site locations
- Visualisation, analysis, and presentation of mission-critical data
- Profit, time, and resource maximisation
Pros: Customer support, user friendly
Cons: Some map customisation issues reported by some users, reported to be slow
Industry: Logistics, healthcare, restaurants
Founded: 1983
Free trial or demo: Free trial
7. Xactly AlignStar
Xactly AlignStar is a territory management system that supports numerous companies to achieve their revenue targets. They provide the tech for an agile strategy and help sales teams with insights to meet their targets. Xactly AlignStar allows territory planners to create special features like Territory Expert and Thematic Mapping for an equal distribution across all territories.
Features
- Interactive map-based interface
- Alignment reports
- What-if analysis
- Cloud collaboration
Pros: Manual adjustment capabilities, visualisation
Cons: Interface looks and feels of an older generation
Industry: Software
Founded: 2005
Free trial or demo: Free demo
8. EasyTerritory
EasyTerritory is a powerful territory management system that provides web-based mapping software to uplift sales territory management, service territory capacity planning, etc. It supports Excel, Power BI, SQL Azure and is highly useful in the logistics, manufacturing, financial services, food and beverage distribution, pharmaceutical, and a plethora of other industries. EasyTerritory can help sales managers develop territories and align or realign sales reps to these via interactive mapping, utilising postal codes or country boundaries. The software ships with a wide variety of data such as the latest postal codes.
Features
- Create territories from list of locations or geographies
- Automatically realign territories leveraging data
- Manual selection of geographies on the map
- Abilities such as stitching or cropping territories
- Export territory alignments to spreadsheets
- Territory Statistics
Pros: Reliable support, analytics, custom reports
Cons: Appears to be limited in scope against some of the others on this list
Industry: Retail, hardware, food & beverage, pharmaceutical
Founded: 2015
Free trial or demo: Free trial
9. Salesrabbit
SalesRabbit is a territory management system that streamlines the process of determining areas, assigning them to sales reps, and then track their progress in real time. Managers get full disclosure on a sales rep’s day – where they have been, where they are, and where they are going to be. You will be controlling all aspects – size, shape, and quantity – in an area. Introduce enormous efficiency with detailed visibility by finding out which locations work best for which sales reps and managers. All you need to do is upload and then prioritise your leads in the system and leave it to SalesRabbit to chalk out the best route for your sales reps!
Features
- Sales territory mapping
- Lead generation
- Lead management
- Gamification
Pros: Easy-to-use interface, real-time and easy monitoring of sales rep activities, customer details are readily available to sales reps before they visit a store
Cons: Limited integration capabilities, limited filter and reporting options
Industry: Real estate, solar, home security, pest control
Founded: 2013
Free trial or demo: Free demo
What It Means…
Your sales efforts are highly dependent on you having a good grasp of territory management. As it is hard and even downright impossible for human beings to make accurate decisions on setting up territories, the use of a territory management software is strongly advised. Once your sales reps have a clear idea about customer types and territories, they can close deals much more successfully. Your territory design, management, and sales rep alignment strategies are the cornerstone to your sales efforts. With the right kind of software and planning in place for your territories, you will be able to save on resources and ultimately improve your bottomline.
The tools or platforms mentioned in this piece should give you an idea of what’s on offer but you need to make the right choice to ensure good ROI.
BeatRoute is a choice you can’t go wrong with. Book a free demo to find out why!
FAQ
1. What are territory management tools?
Territory management is the strategic prioritisation of prospects and existing customers by brands on the basis of location or industry. It helps ease the pressure and load on the sales reps and sales team as a whole, resulting in more efficient work, better relationships with customers, and a potential help spread out the workload for your sales team, allowing them to complete tasks more efficiently, build better customer relationships, and a potential surge in lead conversion.
2. What are the benefits of territory management tools?
- Adequate sales rep alignment boosts sales while reducing expenses
- Data-based performance monitoring
- Visualisation that allows brands to better comprehend otherwise missed opportunities such as leads
- A major uplift in revenue with sales team operating on well-optimised territories
- Increased efficiency with an automated territory management software that provides the best solution to save time
