B2B CRM Function

Purpose: To structure and manage the entire business-to-business sales lifecycle, from identifying corporate prospects and engaging key contacts to closing complex deals and forecasting revenue.

Why This Matters

Business Impact: This 📋 Function provides a single source of truth for all client and prospect interactions. It streamlines the sales process, improves forecast accuracy, enhances team collaboration, and provides clear visibility into pipeline health and individual performance.

The Big Picture

The B2B CRM function is built around three core entities: Companies, Contacts, and Deals.

1. Account Management: A central repository of all client and prospect organizations (🧊 Company object) is maintained. All activities and data points related to an organization are stored here.
2. Contact Management: Key decision-makers and influencers within each 🧊 Company are managed as 🧊︎ Contact records, linked to their parent organization.
3. Opportunity Pipeline: Each potential sale is tracked as a 🧊︎ Deal object, which moves through a structured sales pipeline from initial qualification to final closure. Each 🧊︎ Deal is linked to a 🧊 Company.

This structure allows for a 360-degree view of the customer, ensuring that sales representatives have all the necessary context to manage relationships and close deals effectively.

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Sneak peek

🏢 ACME Corporation (Organization)
│
├── 📂 MARKETING (Area)
│   └── ⏹️ Lead Generation (Space)
│
├── 📂 SALES (Area)
│   └── ⏹️ B2B Sales Pipeline (Space)  // You are here
│       └── 📋 Function: B2B CRM
│           └── 🧊 Company
│               ├── 🧊︎ Contact (Sub-Object)
│               └── 🧊︎ Deal (Sub-Object)
│
├── 📂 DELIVERY (Area)
│   └── ⏹️ Project Management (Space)

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OBJECT RELATIONSHIPS

Parent-Child Relationships

A built-in, strict hierarchy where a “child” object is a component of a “parent” object. This is ideal for work breakdown structures.

Relationship	Description
🧊 Company → 🧊︎ Contact	Each 🧊 Company can have multiple 🧊︎ Contact records associated with it.
🧊 Company → 🧊︎ Deal	Each 🧊 Company can have multiple 🧊︎ Deals over its lifetime.

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PART 2: OBJECT TYPES & WORKFLOWS

1. 🧊 Company (Standard Object)

• Business Process Description: This object acts as the master record for any organization the business interacts with. It holds firmographic data and serves as the anchor for all related contacts and deals.
• Example: “Innovatech Solutions Inc.”, a tech firm with 500-1000 employees in the FinTech industry, is added as a new Prospect. The Account Executive is assigned as David Miller.

Workflow Diagram

Company Workflow

PROSPECT → ACTIVE CLIENT → DORMANT → CHURNED

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2. 🧊︎ Contact (Sub-Object)

• Business Process Description: Manages individuals at a parent Company. This allows tracking of roles, contact information, and engagement history for key stakeholders.
• Example: Jane Doe, CTO at Innovatech Solutions, is added as a Contact linked to the company record. Her email is [e-mail] and phone is 555-0102.

Workflow Diagram

Contact Workflow

ACTIVE → INACTIVE
  ↑       ↓
  └───────┘

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3. 🧊︎ Deal (Sub-Object)

• Business Process Description: This is the core pipeline object, tracking an opportunity from discovery to closure. It contains all commercial information, such as deal value and expected close date.
• Example: A deal named “Innovatech - Q4 Platform Upgrade” is created with a value of $75,000 and an expected close date of December 15, 2025.

Workflow Diagram

Deal Workflow

QUALIFICATION → NEEDS ANALYSIS → PROPOSAL → NEGOTIATION → CLOSED-WON
      ↓               ↓               ↓               ↓
  CLOSED-LOST     CLOSED-LOST     CLOSED-LOST     CLOSED-LOST

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AUTOMATION RULES

Within-Function Automation

These rules run entirely within the B2B Sales Pipeline ⏹️ Space to enhance sales efficiency and ensure process consistency.

ID	Rule Name	Trigger	Action	Description
IC-01	Update Deal Probability	🧊︎ Deal status changes	Update Probability field based on the new status.	Ensures forecast data is always consistent with the deal’s pipeline stage.
IC-02	Log Activity Date	🧊︎ Deal or 🧊︎ Contact is updated	Update Last Activity Date on the parent 🧊 Company to now.	Provides an at-a-glance view of the last engagement with any aspect of an account.

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INTERFACE & REPORTING

Workviews

#	Name	Type	Purpose	Data Configuration
1	Sales Pipeline	Kanban	To visualize and manage all active deals by their current stage.	All 🧊︎ Deals with status not in (CLOSED-WON, CLOSED-LOST), grouped by Status.
2	My Accounts	Table	A list of all companies owned by the current user for account management.	All 🧊 Companies where Account Owner = Current User.
3	Team Activity Feed	List	A chronological view of recent updates across all objects.	All 🧊 Companies, 🧊︎ Contacts, 🧊︎ Deals sorted by Last Updated Date (Descending).

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PART 6: PERMISSIONS & NOTIFICATIONS

Function-Level Roles

These roles define the specific responsibilities and access levels within the B2B CRM function.

Role	Responsibilities	Permissions & Notifications
Sales Development Rep (SDR)	Identifies and qualifies new 🧊 Companies and 🧊︎ Contacts.	Can create and edit 🧊 Companies and 🧊︎ Contacts. Read-only on 🧊︎ Deals. Notified on @mentions.
Account Executive (AE)	Manages the full sales cycle for 🧊︎ Deals. Owns 🧊 Company relationships.	Full control over their assigned 🧊 Companies, 🧊︎ Contacts, and 🧊︎ Deals. Notified on new assignments and deal progress.
Sales Manager	Oversees team performance, manages territories, and approves discounts.	View all objects in the function. Edit rights on all 🧊︎ Deals. Receives weekly pipeline summary and stale deal alerts.

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