Salesforce Delivers Pipeline Visibility and Functionality at Efficient Frontier

"We have an absolute directive to get our arms around what’s in the pipeline and what’s closing. For that reason, Salesforce is exactly what we need. Salesforce may cost more than other options but it provides the most functionality and value."

Overview
Challenge
  • Replace Excel spreadsheets used to house sales contact data
  • Implement a customizable CRM system for greater pipeline visibility and functionality
  • Deliver an easy-to-maintain solution
  • Boost user adoption
Solution
  • Efficient Frontier selected Salesforce SFA for its functionality, global accessibility, performance, and customization. The company successfully deployed Salesforce Professional Edition in less than three months.
Results
  • Visible sales pipeline is driving increased sales
  • Sharp increase in user adoption has led to sales consistencies and quality data
  • Hosted CRM means pain-free and seamless upgrades to new Salesforce versions
Full Story
As the world’s largest search engine marketing (SEM) firm in the world, Efficient Frontier has a reputation as a company that delivers breakaway results. Corporations around the world rely on the superior service and advanced technology provided by the Mountain View, Calif.-based business that manages more keywords, more daily bid changes, and more annual search spend than any other any search marketing firm.

To provide the best search listings, Efficient Frontier knows that information must be timely, accurate, and accessible. That’s why the company appreciates the flexibility and capability of its customer relationship management solution from salesforce.com. Salesforce provides Efficient Frontier with the tools to easily manage its business-critical information and take advantage of it.

Pipeline forecasting wasn’t always a smooth process at the company, though. Efficient Frontier initially took a chance on iRadeon and its hosted version of SugarCRM 3.5, an open source CRM offering. At a mere $125 per month for up to 25 users, SugarCRM seemed like a no-brainer and the company moved forward with an implementation. However, after a year the company chose to cancel its contract and move its data onto Excel.

While Excel proved to be reliable, Efficient Frontier continued to face data management issues. Spreadsheets had to be manually updated and e-mailed between offices in North America and Europe on a weekly basis. Forecasting was virtually impossible without data in one centralized location. Following record growth and expansion into new markets, it soon became obvious that a CRM solution was necessary for pipeline and customer management.

Rapid Growth Drives Need for CRM

"We hit critical mass and struggled to keep all the Excel spreadsheets up to date," says Tim Krozek, vice president of global sales and business development.  "We were getting to be such a big company, doubling our revenue year after year, and it became imperative for us to spend real dollars on CRM. Proper forecasting was necessary to continue with that kind of growth."

This time around, Efficient Frontier knew exactly what it wanted: A globally accessible system capable of delivering performance, customization, and sophisticated reporting capabilities. During the request for proposal process, Efficient Frontier considered solutions from salesforce.com, Entellium and SugarCRM.

Usability was a big buying consideration for Efficient Frontier. Executives knew it would be more cost-effective to go with a hosted solution rather than purchase new hardware and maintain the IT resources and infrastructure required by an on-premise system. Additionally, the company remained a believer in Software-as-a-Service.

The Salesforce Solution

In the end, what sold Efficient Frontier on Salesforce was the free trial. By test-driving a fully featured Salesforce account, executives were able to determine that the leading on-demand solution had the functionality they were looking for such as pipeline forecasting, custom fields, pick lists, and Web-to-lead capabilities.

"We have an absolute directive to get our arms around what’s in the pipeline and what’s closing. For that reason, Salesforce is exactly what we need," Krozek says. "Salesforce may cost more than other options but it provides the most functionality and value."

With the help of Salesforce.com partner Red Sky Solutions, Efficient Frontier implemented Salesforce Professional Edition in just three months. The company easily migrated the data in those disparate Excel spreadsheets using the Apex Data Loader.

Convincing salespeople to use Salesforce was even easier than the deployment.

"Half the team was frustrated with using Excel and with not having a true application to manage their pipelines," Krozek explains. "When we brought in Salesforce, people were fired up and said we were overdue for something just like this."

Efficient Frontier ensured strong user adoption by bringing Red Sky Solutions back to provide training. By doing so, the company successfully avoided transition issues and user frustration. Customizations, which were also handled by Red Sky Solutions, contributed to a significant increase in user adoption. Standard opportunity fields and pick lists have been customized to the jargon used internally by the company to help familiarize salespeople.

"We have been able to make Salesforce very specific to us and our niche in the world," Krozek says. "By doing so, we’re able to strategically focus our sales and marketing efforts where they’ll have the most impact."

Real-time and up-to-date information accessible at anytime from anywhere provides the company with a clearly visible sales pipeline and drives increased sales. In addition, executives now know what’s going on in the market and have the ability to effectively manage territories as the company continues to expand internationally.

As for performance, Salesforce is built on a highly secure, scalable, and reliable platform--ensuring peace of mind. After all, the real-time status of key system components that determine whether Efficient Frontier users can access their data in Salesforce can be checked at any time at trust.salesforce.com.

More Innovation on the Way

Salesforce’s secure, on-demand model also means Efficient Frontier’s IT department is now free to focus on innovation rather than maintenance. For example, the success of Salesforce within the sales department has driven an internal initiative to get Efficient Frontier’s client services and marketing departments on Salesforce as well.

"Competitors say they provide the same functionality as Salesforce at a cheaper price, but we haven’t found that to be the case," Krozek says. "While employees have felt limited with other CRM solutions and Excel spreadsheets, they are asking specifically for Salesforce now."

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