Sales territory planning is key to running a successful sales team. It keeps you ahead of the competition by helping you use resources wisely and your team stay focused. But it’s not just about drawing lines on a map. It’s about using the right tools and data to help your team perform better.
Sales territory planning tools perform various functions, from mapping territories to providing performance analytics. With so many options, choosing the tools you actually need keeps your stack easy to use and worth your investment. At the same time, by optimizing territories and focusing on territory-specific sales, you can uncover new revenue opportunities you might otherwise miss.
In this guide, we will discuss a variety of sales territory planning tools, their unique benefits, and how to select the perfect mix for your business. We’ll also explore how using FP&A software, specifically, in your sales strategy can boost the outcome of your sales tech investments.
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Unlocking the greater potential of your sales teams with a well-built tech stack for territory planning
Strong territory planning ensures your sales teams have balanced workloads, maximize potential revenue in every region, and reduce missed opportunities. It can help you outperform the competition in a region.
While there are tools built specifically for sales territory planning, no single tool does it all, which means that choosing one will likely involve some trade-offs. Thinking through the types of data you need to inform your territory planning and the specific capabilities you’ll need to fully leverage that data will make it clear that a well-designed tech stack, optimized for your unique business and sales strategy is the way to go.
By putting together a tech stack that fits your specific territory planning needs, you can combine tools to create a tailored and effective approach. You can pick tools that are great at specific tasks and also add value to your business. For example, financial planning and analysis (FP&A) software gives you insights and analytics useful for your sales strategy and business performance. The right set of tools makes your territory planning more effective, cuts costs, and improves ROI.
Transform your territory planning with a robust sales and revenue planning platform
Different types of software to consider adding to your territory planning software stack (and why)
Territory planning involves a lot of moving parts, and having the right tools is key to making it all work. These tools help with everything from mapping and assigning territories to analyzing performance and forecasting. Some platforms bundle several features into one solution. On the other hand, specific software options provide exclusive insights tailored to sales planning.
A well-rounded sales planning system integrates different types of sales territory planning software. It becomes easier for businesses to get insights tailored to their sales plan. Combining the most useful features of different tools creates an efficient approach to managing territories and staying agile when the market shifts.
Choosing the right sales territory planning software can feel overwhelming, though, because considered within the context of capabilities, it’s a pretty broad category and includes a wide range of tools built to support sales teams. Figuring out which ones are the best fit for your business isn’t always easy.
In this review, we’ve focused on nine types of software that help support sales territory planning, each with different types of capabilities that you can leverage to improve your territory planning process and help you become more competitive.
Within each of these nine categories, we’ve reviewed some of the top options to help you better evaluate how their capabilities might fit into your current tech stack. This should save you some time as you explore new ways to level up your current sales territory planning process with a highly optimized tech stack.
| Software Category | Description | Our Top Picks |
|---|---|---|
Sales forecasting tools with predictive analytics | Processes historical and real-time data to enable accurate sales forecasts and optimal resource allocation for each territory | Drivetrain, Gong, Anaplan |
Customer relationship management (CRM) software | Offers territory-based insights to streamline customer tracking and increase sales efficiency | Salesforce CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Zoho CRM |
| Sales performance management (SPM) software | Helps achieve sales objectives by monitoring territory-wise performance | Drivetrain, Xactly, Varicent |
| Workforce management & capacity planning software | Aligns sales teams with territory needs based on demand, workforce availability, and skills to optimize resources | Drivetrain, BambooHR, ADP Workforce Now |
| Geospatial mapping & analytics software | Analyzes demographic data to create data-driven sales plans for specific regions | ArcGIS Business Analyst & ArcGIS Online, MapInfo Pro |
| Mobile & field sales applications | Provides a visual map of sales territories and allows adjusting boundaries based on location data | Badger Maps, Geopointe |
| Quota & incentive compensation management software | Allows sales managers to motivate and reward sales teams with sales quotas and compensation plans tailored to different territories | Spiff, Performio, SAP Success Factors Incentive Management |
| Market & competitive intelligence software | Optimizes sales strategy by tracking customer behavior, market trends, and competitors in each territory | ZoomInfo, Crayon, Contify |
| Data analytics platforms | Combines data from various sources to visualize sales performance and identify growth opportunities in each territory | Drivetrain, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau |
4 key considerations when choosing financial software tools to build into your tech stack
Choosing the right tools for sales territory planning for your business takes some careful consideration. It’s important to consider your current needs as well as future needs that will likely arise as your sales operations and sales territory planning process evolves.
Generally speaking, the process of evaluating sales territory planning isn’t a whole lot different from that for any other software buying decision. However, there are a lot of different types of software that can support the sales territory planning process that aren’t specifically marketed as such. This can lead to missed opportunities to optimize your process.
Of course, you’ll have to compare pricing models, including licensing fees, subscriptions, and extra costs for customization. And, you’ll need to consider implementation time and support availability. All of this is critical to evaluating the ROI of each tool you add to your stack.
However, this comes after you’ve figured out which of the nine categories of territory planning software make sense for your business and explored the options within each of those. Here’s the process we recommend for doing that:
1. Look at your current situation
Start by evaluating your current sales territories and performance. Are your territories imbalanced? Are sales falling short because of outdated quotas? Are you struggling with performance tracking? Do you have all the information you need to create sales territories that are fair and accurately reflect the market opportunities?
Understanding your pain points helps you identify the specific capabilities you need. For example, if you don’t already have them in your tech stack, software that offers features like detailed mapping, automated recommendations, or quick performance metrics can help your team work smarter.
The more specifically you can identify your needs, the easier it is to find tools worth investing in, with features that will deliver real ROI.
2. Audit existing tools
Once you’ve identified the features and capabilities you need, the best place to start looking for them is in your current tech stack. Look at each category in the table above to identify which ones you might already have covered with software you’re currently using. Keep in mind that software in some of the categories we’ve covered here may reside in other departments, so ask around.
If you find that your company is currently using a software in one or more of these categories, look at all the features it offers to see if there are any that you can use specifically to support your sales territory planning process. For instance, a CRM platform like Salesforce may already include mapping tools that can handle the initial stages of planning.
Using what you already obviously will save you money. It will also keep the learning curve shorter for your team by providing new capabilities in a tool they or others in your company are already familiar with.
3. Address gaps in functionality
If your current software stack doesn’t offer all the capabilities you need, it’s time to explore software categories that will fill in the gaps. For instance, if you lack technology to support accurate sales forecasting, investing in financial forecasting software could improve your planning process.
Focus on finding tools that cover multiple needs without overloading your team with overlapping features. A thoughtful approach ensures you only invest in solutions that fill the gaps effectively and contribute to overall efficiency.
4. Ensure seamless integration
All tools in your tech stack need to work well together. It’s important to ensure that any new software you consider adding to your stack can be integrated with, ideally, every other tool you use for sales territory planning. Poor integrations lead to silos, inefficiencies, and headaches for your team.
Integration with your CRM is probably the most important. But, don’t stop there. Look for tools with open APIs and strong compatibility with platforms you already use to future-proof your tech stack and achieve a consistent flow of insights to inform your sales territory planning.
Top tools for each category of territory planning software
Setting up a reliable sales territory management system for your startup or upgrading your current tools requires careful selection. Below, we take a deeper dive into the nine different categories of sales territory planning software and the top vendors in each.
Sales forecasting tools with predictive analytics
Sales forecasting tools use historical and real-time sales data to predict sales potential and inform territory planning accurately. The predictive modeling tools analyze past sales, market trends, and customer behavior to allocate resources for the highest returns. Sales managers can simulate various scenarios based on changes in pricing, marketing strategies, or economic conditions.
Drivetrain is actually a comprehensive financial planning and analysis (FP&A) platform that offers the full range of financial forecasting, including sales forecasting. With 200+ integrations, Drivetrain is able to leverage your historical data along with real-time data from a wide variety of source systems to predict future sales trends. Drivetrain is also a robust scenario planning software that you can use to test different resource allocation strategies across multiple territories to optimize performance. You can zoom out or drill down into your data easily to get a very granular view to help you spot bottlenecks, uncover new opportunities, and make data-driven decisions.
Gong is an AI-powered revenue intelligence solution that assesses customer interactions to forecast the potential of opportunities. While not as comprehensive as Drivetrain, Gong offers reliable predictive forecasting for individual deals and overall revenue.
Anaplan is an enterprise-level sales forecasting tool with powerful predictive modeling, trend analysis, and scenario planning features. The platform’s flexible and scalable architecture allows businesses to adapt to evolving market needs. The collaboration feature allows data sharing to set realistic targets and expectations for each territory. However, it should be noted that Anaplan has a pretty steep learning curve and implementation times can be lengthy.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software
CRM software helps businesses track customer information, streamline communication, and organize sales data by territory. Centralizing data improves client relationships and boosts sales efficiency. Features like account assignment and lead distribution align sales reps with regional opportunities. Pipeline management tools prioritize deals, and regional reporting provides insights to meet territory-based goals.
Let’s take a closer look at some popular CRM platforms that deliver strong territory management capabilities.
Salesforce CRM is known for its powerful territory management features, allowing you to define territories by geography, industry, or customer characteristics. Features like the ability to customize account and lead assignment rules and split opportunities help distribute customer accounts and sales opportunities efficiently and fairly. The platform also offers detailed regional reporting and analytics to help you quickly realign territories in response to market changes.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is another popular platform that offers robust territory management functionality. You can define territories based on various criteria, such as geographical boundaries, industry verticals, product lines, or customer segments. Features like account and contact management, lead distribution, and opportunity tracking ensure that sales teams are assigned to the right territories. The platform provides customizable reporting by associating financial data with specific territories.
Zoho CRM helps businesses streamline sales processes and improve customer relationships. You can segment territories based on geography, industry, product lines, or revenue expectations. The territory hierarchy feature allows you to create territory-specific forecasts and set targets. The platform also provides interactive sales reports that help you analyze performance metrics, compare territories, and identify trends.
Sales performance management (SPM) software
SPM software helps you easily manage sales goals and quotas by tracking performance across different territories. This makes sales more effective and hassle-free by streamlining your sales process and aligning targets with territories.
Here are the two examples of SPM software that offer powerful territory management features:
Xactly provides advanced goal-setting, tracking, and incentive management capabilities. You can effectively align individual sales reps' goals with overall company objectives, track performance in real-time, and manage incentive compensation with precision and transparency. These features help keep sales teams motivated, focused, and engaged to drive better results.
Varicent is another robust platform for territory planning and optimization that provides features such as territory-specific goal-setting, tracking, and quota attainment. Sales managers can define territories based on market potential, geography, and product lines and create custom dashboards to provide real-time sales performance metrics by territory for making quick adjustments where needed.
Workforce management & capacity planning software
Workforce planning software can be used to align sales teams with territory needs. Capacity planning features in this software category can help you optimize your human resources (HR). For example, you can match your team’s resources to the right territories based on their skills and experience, making sure you have the right people in the right places.
This type of software may also offer budgeting, forecasting, and performance tracking features that can make territory planning and management easier and more effective. Here are three good options for workforce planning.
Drivetrain allows organizations to set equitable quotas that align with market opportunities and offers real-time analytics allowing sales teams to monitor performance. What-if analysis helps sales managers forecast outcomes based on different territory configurations or quota settings to optimize their territory planning. Drivetrain also supports cross-functional alignment to ensure accurate planning and budgeting for each territory.
BambooHR is a strategic HR planning tool that consolidates employee information, including roles, skills, and performance metrics. Sales managers can assign territories by matching representatives to areas based on their strengths, expertise, and experience. With more than 125 integrations, chances are pretty good that it will integrate with your existing sales, HR, and CRM systems to help you align your human resources with your sales territories and larger sales strategy. Sales managers can also assess workforce capacity by tracking employee availability and workload on the customizable dashboards.
ADP Workforce Now is a suite of workforce management and capacity planning tools. It offers reporting and analytics for capacity planning to assess workforce availability and workload in each territory and prevents overstaffing/understaffing with performance tracking across regions. The platform automates scheduling to assign sales representatives based on territory needs and employee availability to optimize coverage and customer engagement.
Geospatial mapping & analytics software
Geospatial mapping and analytics software (commonly referred to as geographic information systems) offer a wide variety of features that improve sales territory planning, including location-based data analysis, heat maps, demographic insights, and custom territory creation based on their sales potential.
For example, creating a map showing a region with demographics matching your ideal customers and overlaying it with another map showing competitor locations can help you identify areas of potential opportunity where there is less competition.
It’s the combination of mapping and analysis capabilities that makes this category of software so powerful for sales territory planning. It helps you analyze, and optimize your sales territories visually, based on their sales potential. Here are the top three geospatial mapping and analytics software vendors we recommend looking at if you want to take your territory planning to the next level.
ArcGIS Business Analyst is a robust suite of geospatial mapping and analytics tools that can provide insights into customer demographics, spending habits, and other data that may be relevant to your business. By analyzing this data on interactive maps, sales teams can identify market segments, understand customer behavior, and refine their sales strategies. It can also be used to plan market entry by analyzing different sites and pinpointing the best locations for new stores or service areas based on proximity to target customers and competitors.
ArcGIS Online is a tool that specializes in designing and balancing sales territories based on various criteria such as population density, sales potential, or geographic boundaries. You can run what-if scenarios to see how different territory setups could impact sales performance.
MapInfo Pro is another notable geospatial mapping and analytics software. It simplifies territory creation based on customer counts, sales volume, or demographic characteristics. Users can balance territories by customer count, sales volume, or demographics to ensure fair account distribution among sales reps, improving coverage and resource use. The spatial querying and modeling tools help test different scenarios for an accurate view of a location’s possibilities.
Mobile & field sales applications
Mobile and field sales applications give sales teams valuable insights into their territories. This software category combines customer locations with demographic data, sales metrics, or competitor locations gives a clearer picture of the market. For example, identifying high-density customer areas or underserved regions allows you to allocate resources where they will make a large impact. Sales managers can easily modify territory boundaries to keep up with customer shifts or competitive pressure.
Software designed for mobile and field sales are perhaps best known for their route-planning capabilities, which allow businesses with field sales – reps that visit customers in person – optimize their time by planning the best routes for visiting multiple clients, factoring in appointment times and traffic in real time.
Badger Maps is a popular mobile sales routing and mapping application for field sales representatives. It provides a visual representation of customer data on an interactive map, allowing sales reps to identify high-priority clients in a region quickly. It provides heat maps showing customer density and sales performance, helping you identify high-potential regions or areas needing more attention.
Geopointe is an advanced third-party field sales application designed specifically for use with Salesforce. Given the popularity of Salesforce CRM (and also to underscore our earlier point about finding tools that integrate well), we’ve included it here for your consideration.
Geopointe allows you to visualize your Salesforce CRM data geographically allowing you to create custom territories by either drawing them out on a map or using predefined boundaries such as zip codes, counties, or cities. Geopointe also uses real-time traffic and location data to optimize route planning and schedule more appointments on each team member’s calendar. It also runs natively on the Salesforce mobile app so sales teams can enter meeting logs and other key information from anywhere.
Quota & incentive compensation management software
Quota management tools and incentive calculators can help motivate sales teams based on territory dynamics. Tailoring incentives to match specific territory goals and market conditions helps drive productivity, reward hard work, and boost revenue. Automated commission tracking improves transparency and saves costs. We’ve reviewed three popular quota and incentive compensation management software options below.
Spiff is a modern commission management platform that helps set realistic and achievable targets for sales teams. It allows sales managers to customize quotas based on market conditions, past performance, and customer demographics. You can also link compensation directly to performance metrics, which encourages sales reps to focus on revenue-driving activities within their territories.
SAP SuccessFactors Incentive Management provides a robust solution for territory planning and incentive management. The software helps identify trends, strengths, and weaknesses within specific territories to make informed adjustments to quotas. It uses AI-generated recommendations to help optimize incentive plans. This solution also features performance-based compensation structures to reward sales teams for achieving goals and meeting quotas.
Performio is a feature-rich incentive compensation software that monitors territories and derives insights from the data to identify trends, strengths, and weaknesses for each territory to make quota adjustments.
It also automates commission calculation by comparing customer purchase behavior with sales team performance.
Market & competitive intelligence software
Market and competitive intelligence software gives businesses insights into trends, competitor activity, and customer behavior. It looks at historical data and current market conditions to spot patterns that can impact sales strategies and provides insights into regional markets by studying customer demographics, buying habits, and local economic trends. Below are three vendors worthy of consideration for your sales territory planning software stack.
ZoomInfo is a leading market and competitive intelligence software that offers real-time sales intelligence. Advanced segmentation capabilities help sales managers identify markets with the best opportunities. Combining those insights with intent data and predictive scoring, ZoomInfo also helps sales teams pursue leads that are most likely to convert.
Crayon is another prominent market and competitive intelligence software that uses AI and machine learning to monitor competitors' activities across various digital platforms, providing key insights that can be used for more strategic territory alignment. With Crayon, your sales team can get real-time alerts about the latest market updates and competitive insights. Another nice feature is the ability to create sales enablement tools like battle cards and analysis reports tailored to specific territories and embed them into other sales tools your team uses (e.g. Salesforce).
Contify is a market intelligence platform that aggregates information about competitors and industry trends to provide a clear picture of a territory. It integrates with a variety of CRM tools for efficient data retrieval and offers real-time alerts on new market opportunities. Contify can also provide insights tailored to individual accounts within each of your sales territories.
Data analytics platforms
Data analytics platforms help sales teams analyze different aspects of the sales operation to find opportunities for improvement. For example, you can do a performance gap analysis to make more informed territory divisions and resource allocations. These platforms leverage historical data and market trends to help sales teams identify factors impacting territory performance. Advanced analytics make it easier to create customer segments based on buying habits, preferences, and demographics, enabling more effective personalized sales strategies. Here, we’ve reviewed two of the leading data analytics platforms.
Microsoft Power BI is a feature-rich data analytics platform that pulls together data from sales, customer interactions, and market research to make proactive adjustments in strategy. Sales managers can easily track KPIs for each territory, like sales volume, quota progress, and customer engagement. The platform also includes interactive maps and charts, making it simple to dive into the data in real-time. It’s worth mentioning that if your business is already using Microsoft 365, you may already have access to Power BI as well as Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Tableau is another popular data analytics platform known for its exceptional data visualization capabilities. The platform’s analytics help sales teams easily track sales performance, spot trends, and create data-driven sales territories. Sales teams can even run what-if scenarios with Tableau’s visualization tools to see how different territory setups could impact sales performance.
Add value to your territory planning with Drivetrain FP&A software
Using multiple tools can feel overwhelming to sales teams, especially if they don’t all play well together. As with any tech stack, the goal should be to build the leanest, most cost-effective combination of software that provides all the functionality and features you need.
As we’ve mentioned, it’s unlikely that you’ll find a single software that will provide every feature you’re looking for in a sales territory planning solution. The key is to look for a tool that checks off multiple boxes on your list. Bonus points (and ROI) if you can find one that offers additional value above and beyond what it provides for your sales territory planning process.
This is why you should look at Drivetrain.
As a comprehensive FP&A software platform, Drivetrain can simplify many aspects of sales and revenue planning, including sales territory planning, while providing a robust set of capabilities your finance team can leverage for all of its financial planning and analysis.
Drivetrain allows sales teams to track important metrics like sales volume, quota progress, and customer engagement across territories and provide many of the features found in other sales territory planning software categories we’ve reviewed:
- Sales performance management (SPM) software: Drivetrain offers insights into sales activities, targets, and incentives. The insights help track territory-wise performance and make adjustments to improve sales team productivity.
- Workforce management and capacity planning software: Drivetrain integrates with HRIS, ATS, and payroll systems to help optimize staffing levels, scheduling, and task assignment. The platform tracks differences between your budgeted and actual headcount. It automates employee movement tracking and allows scenario modeling, too.
- Sales forecasting tools with predictive analytics: Drivetrain helps with sales forecasting by integrating CRM, ERP, and HRIS systems. It uses predictive analytics to analyze historical sales data for accurate demand forecasting. The platform also compares the data with current market trends for better resource allocation.
- Quota and incentive compensation management software: Drivetrain integrates seamlessly with BI platforms, CRM, invoicing systems, HRIS platforms, ERP and other solutions to automatically aggregate the data you need to determine your sales targets and manage compensation plans.
- Data analytics platforms: Drivetrain generates actionable insights from customer behavior, market trends, and sales performance. It helps sales teams visualize performance through custom reports to identify opportunities and mitigate risks.
With all of these capabilities, combined with the full range of financial planning, modeling and forecasting features businesses need today, Drivetrain is a solid choice for keeping it lean with a value-added tech stack to improve your sales territory planning for better performance.
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Related territory planning guides
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