ASCAP

Salesforce eliminated a lot of email back-and-forth. It helped us streamline communications and become more efficient.”

JOHN JOHNSON, SVP OF LICENSING AT ASCAP
 

ASCAP increases revenues 40% with Salesforce.

Steven Tyler. Jack Johnson. Fun. No one knows better than star performers that the music business is big business. But what about the songwriters behind the hits? Each year, ASCAP — a performance rights organization with 450,000+ members — collects almost a billion dollars in licensing fees for composers. To power its unique business, ASCAP uses Salesforce. “We realized enormous gains when we replaced Lotus Notes with Salesforce,” explains John Johnson, Senior Vice President, Licensing for ASCAP. “License processing increased 75%, commissions review and approval by accelerated 89%, and revenue grew 40%.” With Sales Cloud, ASCAP has visibility to the activities of reps that work with the restaurants, TV shows, and websites that license music, with easy forecasting and reporting built in. Chatter helps them collaborate on deals or share new licensing agreements, and quickly track down missing information. “Chatter eliminated a lot of email back-and-forth,” explains Johnson. “It helped us streamline communications and become more efficient.” And, because Salesforce works in the cloud, ASCAP reps can use any Internet-connected device—from a Windows desktop, to an Android tablet, to the iPhone 5. Instead of distributing laptops, the organization recently began moving to a “bring-your-own-device” model. ASCAP is saving $300,000 annually on hardware, maintenance, and support staff. “Salesforce has transformed our business,” Johnson says. “We’ve shifted resources so we’re doing less paper pushing and more activities that generate revenue for our members.”

 

We realized enormous gains when we got Salesforce. License processing increased 75%, commissions review and approval by accelerated 89%, and revenue grew 40%.”

JOHN JOHNSON, SVP OF LICENSING AT ASCAP

Custom apps that harmonize operations

Building on its success with sales, ASCAP began developing apps with Salesforce Platform. To-date the organization has built 40+ custom apps, for everything from customer service, payment processing, and vacation tracking. “It used to take us 3-4 months to develop an app that we can now build in just days, and our business analysts can quickly spin up their own tools,” explains Johnson. “Salesforce Platform is the fastest path from idea to application—and it’s helping us reach new levels of innovation and efficiency.”
 

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