ICT & Sales

The sales department of an organisation is the one you will be most familiar with as it is the one you see as a customer. The main responsibility is to make sure that the organisation sells its product to help it make a profit. The sales department can be combined with the marketing function to sell the product.

The main functions of the sales department are as follows:

  • Daily communication with customers
  • Dealing with customer orders
  • Keeping customers up to date with the progress of orders
  • Liaising with other departments to ensure the availability of products
  • Keeping details of customer information

Giving after sales service when the product has been delivered.
 

 How ICT is used in Sales

  • Computerised order systems
  • Customer orders are processed by large relational database systems containing one table for product information and one for customer information. The key field can be either the customer number or product code.
  • Many businesses allow customers to enter their orders directly onto the computerised system using the Internet.
  • Customer Databases
  • Once an organisation has a customer's details they like to keep records on that customer. Records can be used to market new products specifically to customers who have shown an interest in that product type. The database tracks the customer using their unique customer number and all of the purchases that customer makes are stored on their record.
  • A good example of this is supermarket loyalty cards. The customer hands over the card every time they shop in order to earn points. The supermarket records details of each item the customer has bought and is able to offer targeted marketing. For example - if you have a cat and regularly buy cat food then you will receive money off vouchers for cat food.  
  • Sales patterns and trends analysis
  • Using the information on the customer database an organisation can predict sales patterns and trends to help with marketing strategies. Tables and graphs showing sales figures in different sectors of the market or geographical areas can be produced to help market products more effectively.
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Organisations who do not sell a specific product also use the same sales strategies. Charities keep customer databases and write appeal letters to the people on them.

ICT in Finance

How the finance department uses ICT will depend on the exact nature of the business.  All organisations use computers but different systems are used in companies. For example a large company will have lots of systems written specifically for them but a small company will buy software off the shelf.

Income and Expenditure

An important role of the finance department is to account for the money they receive and spend ...

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