AmerisourceBergen Specialty Group grows a healthy business with Salesforce

Salesforce CRM automates manual processes and enhances our access to information, which lets us focus on customers and innovation.

— AmerisourceBergen Specialty Group

Leading pharmaceutical services provider wanted to deploy a comprehensive business platform to support sales, service, and other business processes across more than 10 divisions
Needed to replace a custom .NET solution that couldn't keep pace with rapid growth and market-driven business needs
Wanted to quickly develop and deploy new applications to support distribution partners, patients, and physicians

Considered Microsoft CRM and Siebel, but chose Salesforce for its rapid implementation time, low up-front cost, and ability to quickly develop new tools and applications using the Force.com cloud platform
With help from Astadia, rolled out Salesforce to employees in customer support, finance, human resources, inside and outside sales, marketing, and more—1,000 corporate and divisional employees are currently using the solution

Sales Cloud

Consolidated contact and customer information in the Sales Cloud and integrated with a Baan ERP solution and proprietary data warehouse via the Cast Iron Systems integration solution
Customized dashboards and reports for real-time updates on key business metrics
Added a content library to replace local file systems and ensure sales teams can easily access the most up-to-date and relevant information
Added mobile functionality so outside sales teams access and update data from the road using BlackBerry devices
Installed Conga Merge from the AppExchange to help generate proposals and ExactTarget for real-time campaign results

Deployed the Service Cloud to more than 500 agents in four customer service groups to manage requests through electronic data interchange (EDI), phone, and Web
Developed physician safety portals to help doctors access information, confidentially review prescriptions and orders, and report patient issues
Designed a branded ideas community in just 3 weeks to let annual business summit attendees submit and review conference topic ideas

Moved public Web sites to Force.com sites for seamless integration with Salesforce data
Developed custom applications using Force.com to manage:
- A highly complex returns process—automated signature integration with EchoSign makes it easy to secure required signatures, accelerating the returns process by nearly 2,500%; turnaround has dropped from 70 days to 3
- Funding approvals—streamlines the entire finance approval system with division-specific workflows
- Flu-vaccine pre-orders—replaces a phone and Fax-based system and facilitates inventory and production planning; more than 90% of flu pre-orders are now completed online
- IT recruiting—matches open reqs with candidates

Added Chatter to facilitate communication on sales-related issues and to highlight changes in opportunities

Central, easy-to-use system helps disparate groups share information and facilitates cross-divisional business development
Real-time views of key information and metrics improve sales and marketing effectiveness
Fast access to relevant content helps sales be more efficient and close deals quickly

Agents can quickly respond to more than 5,000 customer inquiries per day; customer and product issues are automatically captured in Salesforce
Can easily create and deploy additional ideas communities to support future conferences and events

IT can roll out 1–2 new projects per month, with a 40%–80% savings compared to traditional platforms
Reduced return times from 60–90 days to just 2–3 days with a custom returns app; the solution will pay for itself in only 8 months
Eliminated paper-based finance approval processes and reduced the time to secure approvals from weeks to days
Delivered an IT recruiting management app in 3 weeks, consolidating information on 450+ candidates applying for 36 positions

With real-time updates pushed to the sales team, employees can easily stay up to date on opportunities, customers, and accounts
With a single solution, employees can collaborate and share information that was previously siloed within the organization