On Deck Capital Sees Quick Time to Value in the Cloud With Salesforce.com

Challenge

• On Deck Capital, the leading financing network and technology platform for small businesses unable to qualify for traditional loans, needed a solution to manage leads, take and underwrite loan applications, and track customers on an on-going basis.
• The company offers unique short-term loans with payments collected daily. It required a flexible platform with customizable workflows and the ability to adapt its processes as requirements changed.
• As a venture-backed start up, On Deck Capital needed to avoid large infrastructure and customization costs.
• Many small businesses struggle with the maintenance of servers and software. On Deck Capital wanted a cloud-based solution so its employees could focus on growth instead.

Solution

• On Deck Capital chose Salesforce CRM and the Force.com platform over off-the-shelf lending options for the easy, point-and-click customization.
• Salesforce.com’s cloud-computing model enabled product managers to customize Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition and deploy it companywide in just 6 weeks to users in sales, marketing, operations, underwriting, management, and collections—without outside help.
• The company quickly upgraded to Salesforce Unlimited Edition for increased document storage. Contracts are attached to Salesforce CRM records for faster due diligence and reporting.
• Using the Force.com platform, On Deck Capital built a custom loan origination system to track leads, accept and process applications, and underwrite and issue loans.
• Automated workflows and alerts keep loans flowing through the data validation process toward approval. Integration with 3rd parties, including leading credit bureaus and identity verification services, gives On Deck Capital fast access to credit information needed for approving and processing loans.
• Salesforce CRM Sales houses information for thousands of accounts and facilitates tens of thousands of tasks and activities.
• On Deck Capital is leveraging salesforce.com’s enterprise-grade security solution, including strong passwords, site-based login restrictions, and user profiles with varying levels of permissions in order to meet stringent financial services data security standards.
• Custom tabs and dashboards give fast access to key metrics including sales volumes, and loan processing and close rates by geography. The “Loan Application” object is a secure digital archive of a customer’s paperwork.
• Marketers can create and manage targeted campaigns from within Salesforce CRM with integrated landing pages. Customers qualified through telesales are imported with completed applications for faster processing.
• Service reps interact with customers, and track and resolve issues with Salesforce CRM Service. Seamless integration with Cisco Call Manager Express enables click-to-dial and screen pops. Email-to-case functionality helps resolve problems quickly.
• On Deck Capital installed two applications from the AppExchange: SalesGenius for integrated email campaigns with real-time response alerts; and Conga Merge to create content-rich documents and reports using Salesforce CRM data.

Results

• In less than 2 months, On Deck Capital deployed a customized loan management platform at approximately 20% of the cost of competitive systems and without incurring professional services fees.
• Custom loan origination system built with Force.com lets the company move loans rapidly through the approval process for increased business.
• Fast access to customer and business data supports due diligence and facilitates improved business decisions.
• The rapid pace of development using Salesforce CRM has enabled the company to get value from the solution more quickly, and it reports higher revenue per engineer than typical for its industry.