Aurora: The Capital Sales Funnel
The backbone of project and machinery sales.
A defined sales process with clear stages and gates – enabling data-driven sales team management and more reliable forecasting.
A defined sales process with clear stages and gates – enabling data-driven sales team management and more reliable forecasting.
What problems does Aurora help solve?
Lost Projects
When too many projects are lost, we often don’t receive feedback or fail to understand the real reasons behind the rejection – making it hard to learn and improve.
Challenging Prioritization
An overload of early-stage opportunities makes it hard to spot the truly hot deals – the ones that need our focus right now.
High proposal costs
Quoting too early leads to a win rate of less than 20% after proposal submission – meaning a €10,000 quote effectively costs €50,000.
Your benefits with Aurora
Improved Sales Forecasting
An objective view based on customer commitments rather than subjective probabilities – bringing clarity on what to expect from each opportunity.
Deeper Customer Understanding
Aligning with the customer’s decision-making process through clearly defined funnel gates leads to more focused and relevant questions.
Comparable Data
Consistent funnel stages across all (international) sales teams enable data aggregation and foster knowledge sharing between teams.
Saving time and money
During quoting and trials/demos, thanks to required customer commitments linked to the sales process.
Higher CRM Adoption
Working closely with the sales funnel helps many sales reps understand—often for the first time—why they actually need a CRM.
Why we developed Aurora
Market Volatility
Engineering companies are exposed to strong cyclical fluctuations, making forecasting a constant challenge.
Inaccurate Sales Forecasting
In strong markets: too many inquiries to handle.
In downturns: high internal pressure despite low chances of success.
The challenge: identifying early when the market is picking up - or slowing down.
In downturns: high internal pressure despite low chances of success.
The challenge: identifying early when the market is picking up - or slowing down.
Low Data Quality
Data is missing as a communication bridge between sales and other departments. This leads to long response times - for example, when production capacity needs to be clarified.
Early Planning
With sales cycles longer than six months, early planning is essential.
Which market segments should opportunities come from - and in what volume?
Which market segments should opportunities come from - and in what volume?
The Story Behind the Name
Aurora – the goddess of dawn
Just as Aurora heralds a new day, our sales funnel brings a new way of thinking to sales - one that is grounded in data and clarity.
It marks a shift from hope and guesswork to radical honesty, creating focus, saving time, and making the sales forecast truly reliable.
What is Aurora?
Defining the sales funnel and building the infrastructure for data-driven steering incl. empowering management to lead with data and actively drive performance.
Our Solution
1
Sales Funnel Definition
Defining the sales process from both the customer and sales perspective - with clear entry points into the funnel, transitions between stages, and exit at order intake.
2
CRM Integration
Funnel stages are fully integrated into the CRM, enabling every sales opportunity to be clearly assigned to a defined stage.
3
Management Dashboard
Development of a dashboard for sales leadership to steer team performance - and for the sales team to prioritize daily sales activities.
4
Empowering Sales Management
Enabling sales leaders to manage the funnel based on data-driven insights.
5
Coaching & Rollout
Hands-on implementation with the sales team and optional rollout to other regions or business units
A sales process designed from the customer’s perspective
- Most opportunities move quickly to the final funnel stages
- Too many opportunities rush to the final funnel stages
- Low win rate between "Negotiate & Close" and "Finally Won"
- Uncertainty about how promising the 1,868 open opportunities in "Negotiate & Close" actually are
- Root cause: Funnel stages and gates are defined from an internal sales process perspective
- Example: “Once I’ve sent out a quote, I move the opportunity to ‘Quote’.”
- Introducing customer-centric gates that reflect the real decision-making process
- The result: Many opportunities move back up the funnel- because the customer simply isn’t there yet.
- Example: “My customer requested a quote, but there’s only one person involved on their side- and they’re not the decision-maker. That tells us the opportunity is still in the ‘Identify’ stage.”
- Introducing a method for proactive opportunity management
- Core question: How can we help the customer move to the next step in their decision-making process?
- The result: Customers see us as a true partner in their decision process - and we’re able to plan the right sales steps with precision and timing.
The Steering Dashboard
1
Best Practice —
We provide a proven Power BI dashboard as a best-practice template for building your steering infrastructure. It can be used directly or serve as a starting point for tools like Tableau, Qlik, and others.
2
Evolving with Every Project
We continuously improve the dashboard together with our clients - so it reflects the experience and insights gained from many real-world projects.
Success Story: Leistritz Pumpen
About Leistritz Pumpen
Pump manufacturer with locations in Europe, the Americas, Southeast Asia, China, and India. Annual revenue: over €150 million.
Before
Unclear sales stages based on the subjective intuition of sales managers.
Difficult to predict future order volumes with confidence.
After
Full transparency on market activity and customer engagement.
The sales funnel now serves as the central steering tool for the sales team.
I've been working with the scope & solve team for several years now. The sales funnel has become my most important tool to align the sales team with our goals.
Markus Schwarte, Managing Director, Leistritz Pumpen