Opportunity

What is an opportunity?

An opportunity is a CRM record for a potential sale, with its value, stage, expected close date and the account it belongs to. Salesforce's object reference describes it as a sale or pending deal. Microsoft's Dynamics 365 documentation says an opportunity lets you forecast revenue, set a potential close date and factor in the probability that the sale happens. Opportunities are the rows that add up to your pipeline.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

Every pipeline, coverage and forecast number is a sum of opportunity records, so the rules for when one gets created and how it moves decide whether those numbers mean anything. Create them too early and pipeline looks inflated; create them too late and you cannot see demand forming. In commercial services, treat renewals, deficiency repairs and new projects as separate opportunity types, because they close at very different rates and blend badly into one win rate.

A testing and inspection firm has 140 open opportunities worth $5.6 million. Split by type, 60 are renewals worth $2.4 million that close at about 85%, and 80 are new projects worth $3.2 million that close at about 25%. Renewals carry roughly $2.0 million of the $2.8 million expected, which a single blended win rate would hide.