Belnick customizes Salesforce for a complete business solution

"Most software products want me to do things a certain way; Force.com gives me the flexibility to do things according to my rules."

Belnick

Belnick, a leading online seller of office chairs and furniture, wanted a customizable technology platform to help run all aspects of its business from inventory management to order processing
The company had been using Excel spreadsheets to track business data, but wanted more robust reporting capabilities
Managers preferred a cloud computing–based solution that wouldn’t require large investments in hardware and software, and would be easy to deploy and maintain
The new platform also had to integrate with an existing Yahoo! Merchant Solutions storefront and a Microsoft Great Plains accounting system

Sales Cloud

Chose Salesforce and Force.com over Microsoft CRM for easy development and deployment of new business applications
The CFO, who had previously attended Salesforce.com Training & Certification programs, customized the Sales Cloud to reflect Belnick’s unique business needs and rolled out a pilot by himself in less than 30 days; the Sales Cloud was ultimately deployed to more than 60 users in sales, marketing, and support
The Sales Cloud stores data on more than 30,000 accounts; tasks and activities keep deals flowing through the pipeline
With the Sales Cloud and Google AdWords, Belnick creates, manages, and measures search engine campaigns from within the Sales Cloud

Business processes ranging from order taking on the Web site to fulfillment in the warehouse to purchasing inventory from Chinese vendors are automated using tools provided by Force.com such as Apex triggers, workflows, formula fields, page layouts, role hierarchies, and other security features
All accounting functions are performed using FinancialForce, an application built natively on Force.com
Orders submitted online through the Yahoo! storefront are pulled into SQL via integration with Force.com; entry and fulfillment are now paperless, and all orders are processed through Force.com
Instantly captures online inquiries with the web-to-lead feature; workflows automatically alert the freight department when quotes need to be generated and also trigger the creation of picking tickets and custom invoices designed with pages (Visualforce)
Built a credit-card-processing interface using Force.com to connect to CyberSource to administer electronic payments
Dashboards provide fast access to key, real-time business metrics; Salesforce connect for Microsoft Office lets Belnick extend analytics with Excel pivot tables and charts

Customer service agents use the Service Cloud’s call center agent console—which was also deployed by the CFO—to log more than 400 support calls each day; email-to-case functionality captures customer inquiries in the Service Cloud
Salesforce connect for Microsoft Outlook keeps a record of critical email communications and events, and keeps customer information up to date

Fast access to key business metrics and advanced analytics facilitates effective decision making and business planning
Paperless order entry system with real-time order and warehouse information helps Belnick improve fulfillment times and better manage inventory levels
Integrated the Sales Cloud and search engine marketing functions, enabling coordinated, measureable campaigns for greater ROI

Decreased IT expenditures and increased development times by using Force.com
Greater efficiencies and reduced administration because order and inventory information is automatically captured
Having a single technology platform makes it easy to automate business processes across applications; for example, filling in the field for the shipping date on a custom-built order fulfillment application sets off an Apex trigger that automatically creates journal entries for revenue recognition and the cost of inventory in FinancialForce
Improved analytics and reporting—including information about individual vendor profitability—through complete, easily accessible data

The Service Cloud lets Belnick’s 20 service agents field more than 400 customer inquiries per day
Centralized repository for order and support information provides complete customer views for better service