Challenge

• Dell, a leading global systems and services company, wanted a CRM solution that could provide a global view of its pipeline and a way to collaborate across global sales teams
• Relied on multiple homegrown opportunity management solutions in each region
• Wanted a flexible, easy-to-use system that was globally consistent; IT was building out a centralized solution, but found it costly
• Dell manages a large number of internal and external recommendations for key technology partnerships, and executives wanted a centralized location where they could determine the status of current and past technology partnership evaluations
• The technology giant also needed a scalable way to collect feedback from its community, helping drive innovation
• Interacts with more than three million customers every day
• The company wanted to create a secure community to capture candid feedback from 80,000 employees around the world
• In addition to the online communities, Dell developed a plan to launch a global partner program in less than 6 months
• Considered “anti-channel,” Dell needed to gain the trust of value-added resellers (VARs)
• Varied channel-facing business units had disparate needs

Solution

Sales Cloud

• Selected the Sales Cloud for its ease of use, flexibility, and the ability to deploy worldwide
• Rolled out the Sales Cloud to 4,000 users in 12 weeks in the United States with help from Salesforce.com Consulting; reached 15,000 users in 18 months
• Managed the overall user training program, leveraging Salesforce.com Training & Certification programs as well as a sales process consulting firm
• Salesforce.com Training & Certification managed up to 140 instructor-led classes, training 3,000+ users in 5 weeks; Salesforce.com Training & Certification also created eLearning courses and other curriculum to provide ongoing training for instructors and users
• Dell and its internal support desk used Salesforce.com Premier Support for 24x7 technical support

Force.com

• Used Force.com to map its business process and build an application for tracking technology partnerships in less than 4 weeks with help from Salesforce.com Premier Support; the application lets a team of 75 technology evaluators track, manage, and report on evaluations
• Venture capital firms and others submit new evaluation submissions via a simple email form built with Force.com
• Workflow and analytics let users and executives easily generate reports to quickly identify, track, and manage key evaluations in real time

Service Cloud

• CEO Michael Dell was so impressed with the way Salesforce CRM ideas communities drive product development at salesforce.com that he immediately wanted one rolled out at his company
• Built Dell IdeaStorm in 3 weeks to give customers and enthusiasts a chance to “walk the halls of Dell” and share ideas that influence product development, services, and operations
• Posted ideas compete on equal footing; comments and voting ensure the most popular ideas bubble to the top
• Within the first week, Dell IdeaStorm had collected more than 500 ideas; by the first month, it had collected 2,500 ideas
• EmployeeStorm is a secure community that lets employees post ideas regardless of where they sit within the company; in the first 2 weeks after launch, it had gathered 700+ ideas

Chatter

• Chatter lets more than 90,000 Dell employees quickly and easily collaborate around documents and information like sales opportunities and marketing campaign leads
• Dell is using Chatter to increase sales productivity and cross-departmental team collaboration, for example by sharing critical facts about customer deals

Results

Sales Cloud

• Dell gets 1,000+ partner registrations per month via the Salesforce partner portal; average turnaround time is reduced to just 36 hours
• $200+ million in deals submitted by partners have been approved and serviced using the Sales Cloud
• Dell’s partner community applauds the Sale Cloud’s simplicity and ease of use
• Looking ahead, Dell is considering an extension to its implementation through the Salesforce partner portal with help from Salesforce.com Consulting; Dell’s new global deal registration program would push leads to partners and manage channel conflict
• Dell is also considering creating custom-branded portals for its 44,000 partners

Force.com

• The Dell CTO team can quickly adapt the technology partner evaluation application to track key technology trends with the Force.com platform and Force.com code (Apex)

Service Cloud

• Ideas bubble up through IdeaStorm, allowing the company to identify pain points and hone in on areas that need improvement and enhancement