Totaljobsgroup Recruits salesforce.com to Maximize Sales Effectiveness

"The great thing about the AppExchange is that we can download an app trial it, and choose it. There’s no complicated purchase cycle, no programming, and very little integration. We can be productive on a new application extremely quickly."

Overview
Challenge
  • Up to 40 percent annual organic growth was outpacing the capability of the existing contact management system
  • Minimal control over sales processes
  • Lack of real-time reporting
  • Difficult to conduct ad hoc reporting
  • Localized business-to-business marketing was a considerable challenge
  • System placed a heavy burden on management time
Solution
  • Deployed salesforce.com sales force automation (SFA) among 14 staff in multiple locations, to create a single, comprehensive view of garden buildings customers.
Results
  • Systems customization is considered quick, effective, and satisfying
  • Seamless integration with Oracle Financials back office system to create a unified order management system
  • Created 5,000 leads every month
  • Revenue generated via the Web to Leads functionality
  • AppExchange eliminates complicated application purchase cycle, programming, and minimizes integration effort
  • Force.com Sandbox allows team to test new customizations, install new AppExchange applications, and test other integrations in a risk-free environment
  • Implemented in six weeks
  • Deployment so successful parent company is also now implementing Salesforce
Full Story

When the leading UK online recruitment company Totaljobsgroup found its contact management system needing replacing, it recruited salesforce.com. Together, Salesforce SFA, the Force.com Platform, and Salesforce Sandbox are helping Totaljobsgroup eclipse its aggressive sales targets and capitalize on every new business opportunity.

One in three of all UK job seekers use Totaljobsgroup. The online recruitment company carries more jobs, from more customers, across more industries than any other commercial recruitment website in the UK. Generating a job application every six seconds, Totaljobsgroup is owned by Reed Elsevier, a FTSE 100 company, and the world’s third largest internet business.

Totaljobsgroup’s growth has been relentless. Five years ago, the company employed five staff-today it is 270. The company is experiencing 40 percent annual organic growth. Only the sales management system was holding the company back. Totaljobsgroup was relying on a standalone Maximizer contact management system to identify, target and acquire customers and according to Andy Weight, Group Client Services Director, the Group had outgrown the capabilities of the system

"We had too little control over our sales processes," he explains. "There was minimal real-time reporting, we couldn’t report very easily on an ad hoc basis and the localized business-to-business marketing was a considerable challenge. Overall, the system placed a heavy burden on management time."

The decision to use salesforce.com was the result of careful analysis of the available options. Totaljobsgroup needed a solution which was easy to integrate, flexible and that could be used at remote locations. Following an initial deployment of salesforce.com’s Professional Edition, Totaljobsgroup recently upgraded to Unlimited Edition for 205 users. "A client/server system simply didn’t make financial or practical sense. Salesforce.com meanwhile had all of the functionality we required, and it was easy to customize ourselves without IT input." "We looked at Siebel and Oracle CRM, but it was clear that salesforce.com had a clear edge in terms of functionality, ease of use and market penetration."

Salesforce SFA was implemented in six weeks, with the bulk of this time devoted to cleaning and de-duping data. Once the cleansed data had been compiled on an Excel spreadsheet, the transfer from Excel to Salesforce took just over an hour. "We were really impressed with how quickly and easily the data on our initial 40,000 companies was transferred," commented Weight.

Using Force.com Builder, Weight and his team has undertaken a considerable amount of customization of the system-and their experience has been quick, effective, and satisfying. The Opportunities module, for example, has been customized to become one, comprehensive opportunities, contracts, and billing system. This system has been integrated with Totaljobsgroup’s Oracle Financials back office system using Force.com API to create a unified order management system. "This order management system will eventually replace our proprietary contracts system," he adds.

Salesforce is also at the heart of Totaljobsgroup’s marketing strategy. Previously, the marketing team focused on direct mail and public relations as a means of targeting new customers. The company now concentrates its efforts solely on online marketing-and the Web to Leads functionality on Salesforce is paying dividends. "We send a personalized email out to prospects and there are fields in there for them to fill in. When they submit the form back to us, the Salesforce system is automatically populated. Right now, we’re creating up to 5,000 leads every month for our sales teams to follow up."

When he’s not browsing the AppExchange, Weight is playing in the Salesforce Sandbox, which became available when Totaljobsgroup upgraded to Unlimited Edition. The Sandbox is a separate Salesforce environment which allows the team to test new customizations and features-such as the Contracts system-install new AppExchange applications, and test other integrations. "Last year, we had to migrate 90,000 account records in the live Salesforce environment, which is a scary prospect. The Sandbox takes the risk out of projects like that. With the clone of our production environment, mistakes don’t matter so much."

He concludes, "I would recommend salesforce.com to any organization looking for a cost-effective, fast, and automated CRM system."


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