Approva Replaces SharePoint-Based Online Sales Kit with Salesforce CRM in 2-Week Rollout

Challenge

• Approva, a provider of risk management and controls intelligence software, needed a comprehensive content management solution to grow and empower its direct sales force.
• The company’s Microsoft SharePoint solution had a complicated organizational structure that made it difficult for the sales team to find relevant marketing content.
• SharePoint upgrades required IT resources dedicated to other priorities. The result: Approva often operated on older versions, unable to take advantage of functionality in newer releases.
• The Approva sales team needed quick, easy access to up-to-date marketing content, and marketing needed feedback from sales on which documents were most important.

Solution

• Already a Salesforce CRM Sales and Salesforce CRM Marketing customer, Approva upgraded to Salesforce CRM Unlimited Edition for Salesforce.com Premier Support.
• After debating the viability of SharePoint upgrades for over a year, Approva implemented Salesforce CRM's content library in only 2 weeks. The company moved 500 documents from Microsoft SharePoint to the new content management solution.
• Search, filtering, and tagging features make it easier for sales to locate relevant marketing content and documents in the content library than in SharePoint.
• With the content library, users can subscribe to receive automatic notifications when content of interest is created or updated. This feature ensures salespeople always deliver up-to-date information.
• Approva expanded on its Salesforce CRM solution by downloading apps, such as DemandTools, Eloqua, Ringlead, VerticalResponse, and a support survey tool, from the AppExchange marketplace.

Results

• Approva has increased inbound prospect inquiries by 25 percent.
• The company has been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of its marketing using Salesforce CRM dashboards and reports.
• Approva’s sales team has quickly adopted Salesforce CRM's content library. The content management solution has made it easier for marketing to better meet sales’ content needs. 
• The content library centralizes sales documents in one place, so sales teams can find the most relevant materials faster than ever. 
• Marketing has visibility into which content is used most by sales and can devote its resources to creating new content.
• Approva’s sales, marketing, support, and finance organizations are using Salesforce CRM as a key business application.
• The cloud-computing model frees IT from ongoing maintenance and upgrades.