Kraton Polymers Standardizes on Salesforce On-Demand CRM and Platform Across its Global Business to Increase Revenues
Organization uses Salesforce Platform to create a central hub for all ERP and customer data
Kraton Polymers is one of the 35,300 companies of all sizes, industries and geographies that comprised the salesforce.com customer base as of July 31, 2007. Revenue and subscribers will be recognized as the service is delivered.
"Before Salesforce, we were using multiple systems to store data, contact customers and track sales progress. As a result, it was difficult to get an accurate and timely understanding of our pipeline and opportunities," said Kenneth Stumbaugh, Director of Strategic Analysis and Business Planning at Kraton Polymers. "We chose Salesforce because it came equipped with what we needed and offered an easy way to configure our deployment to meet our specific needs. It took only three months to roll out a customized Salesforce CRM solution that provides us with complete visibility into our global operations."
In addition to using the Salesforce Platform for customization, Kraton turned to the AppExchange for additional applications to complement their Salesforce deployment. The company downloaded Jasper4Salesforce from JasperSoft, which provides additional reporting capabilities, along with a few AppExchange dashboard applications from salesforce.com.
With greater access to its pipeline data, Kraton's regional business managers can view the status of prospects, ensure timely completion of requests and see both how their business segment and individual sales representatives are performing against targets. The Kraton marketing team is using Salesforce to capture leads and track success metrics by campaign, trade show or other lead generation event, and can link specific income to their marketing expenditures. Users in customer service are tracking issues from registering the customer complaint to case resolution.
"Kraton has already gained significant operational improvements with Salesforce, and we're excited to see how we can continue to maximize our investment and continue to improve our revenue potential," added Stumbaugh. "With faster customer response times and a more strategic approach to our business, salesforce.com has truly given us a competitive edge."
About Kraton
Kraton is a leading global engineered polymer company and one of the world's largest producer of styrenic block copolymers (SBCs), a family of products whose chemistry was pioneered by Kraton over forty years ago. SBCs are highly-engineered thermoplastic elastomers, which enhance the performance of numerous products by delivering a variety of attributes, including greater flexibility, resilience, strength, durability and processability. Kraton polymers are used in a wide range of applications including adhesives, coatings, consumer and personal care products, sealants, lubricants, medical, packaging, automotive, paving, roofing, and footwear products. Kraton has the leading position in nearly all of its core markets and is the only producer of SBCs with global manufacturing capability. Its production facilities are located in the United States, The Netherlands, Germany, France, Brazil, and Japan.
Executive Guide: 8 CRM Essentials Now Available
Read the 8 CRM Essentials for the must-have elements of proven CRM success. Based on insights from industry experts and more than 35,000 salesforce.com customers, this in-depth guide helps you understand innovative technologies and strategies for CRM success. Download the free report.
Salesforce Platform and the AppExchange
Salesforce Platform is the on-demand platform for the next generation of business applications. Salesforce Platform reinvents traditional customization and integration and enables the creation of a whole new generation of on-demand applications that go beyond client/server computing. The Salesforce Platform allows applications to be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's AppExchange directory, enabling all the innovation that the Salesforce Platform unleashes to benefit the entire on-demand community.The AppExchange economy continues to expand as thousands of salesforce.com customers have installed thousands of on-demand business applications available on the AppExchange, found at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange.
About Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). The company's portfolio of SaaS applications, including its award-winning CRM, available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the ways that customers manage and share business information over the Internet. The company’s Force.com PaaS enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful on-demand applications that deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy across the enterprise. Applications built on the Force.com platform, available at http://www.force.com/, can be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's Force.com AppExchange marketplace available at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.
As of July 31, 2008, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 47,700 customers including ABN AMRO, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, Sprint Nextel, and SunTrust Banks. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM". For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
###
Copyright (c) 2008 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce and the "no software" logo are registered trademarks of salesforce.com, inc., and salesforce.com owns other registered and unregistered trademarks. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

