In most of the organizations I’ve worked for, there are on average seven stages in the pipeline from the initial pipeline gathering stage to the final analysis of the won/lost reasons on opportunities tracked in the pipeline.
1) Discovery - Initial Stage where BANT data is qualified.
2) Needs Analysis - This is more indepth than the discovery to identify challenges
3) Demo
4) Feedback Loop from the demo
5) Scope of Work - Gathering to Finalization
6) Negotiations - Usually on the price and any adjustments to the SLA and Agreement
7) Close (won/lost) - Gathering the reasons from the front line team