I came across an article on the Sales Benchmark Index website entitled 'Sales Performance Management: Getting A Fighting Chance'. It was an very interesting read and furthermore I completely agree with the key finding that viewing your data in different ways is not the most important thing and that attaining and maintaining accurate data is the basis of any decision making process.
There is the traditional method of 'carrot and stick', the carrot being remuneration dependant on the level of accuracy of the information that is entered into a system whether it be contact details or sales forecasts, or the stick being the regular review where the cross-examination establishes whether the information is credible.
The sales performance management system needs to be able to store snapshots of what is happening thereby building up a trend analysis database. By using the historic data it is possible to quickly establish whether the sales opportunity is being handled correctly or the sales person is not entering the data correctly.
In the example below the system is tracking the information with regard to the key criteria so that progress can be measured. The opportunity is stagnating why? Looking at the criterion 'Factors governing the decision', the status went from 'established and agreed in our favour' to 'established but not agreed'.
Source: SymVolli - Order Slippage Report
The sales person could have left the status as 'established and agreed in our favour', but the opportunity is stagnating and that is showing up in the slippage report shown below.
Source: SymVolli - Order Slippage Report
The reports are not only seen by management but also by the sale person, so the next time he or she enters data without substance they will think twice as they know that it will be easily identified.
Setting up the system up correctly with proven processes will go a long way, but the system needs to have the ability to highlight exceptions thereby helping maintain to integrity of the data.
You are asking for trouble if you are adding garbage knowing that it will eventually be trapped.