Ariba Gains a Competitive Edge with Salesforce CRM and AppExchange

Challenge

  • Ariba, a leading spend management solutions provider, wanted a leading CRM solution to enable sales and marketing functions
  • The company wanted opportunity and activity tracking to enable salespeople to work more productively 
  • The ability to measure the effectiveness of marketing activities was vital
  • Ariba required flexibility from its CRM solution including anytime, anywhere access 
  • Ariba also demanded an easy-to-use and customizable system that could be rolled out quickly and maintained cost-effectively

Solution

  • Ariba selected Salesforce CRM Enterprise Edition, deploying it to hundreds of users in sales and marketing, as well as executives
  • Using Salesforce CRM, Ariba manages leads automatically as they come over the Web; all leads are followed up on within a few hours-- within 24 hours maximum
  • Reports and dashboards are easily generated and allow executives to track sales and marketing metrics
  • The company broadened its usage of Salesforce CRM by test driving and installing applications such as Inside View, ExactTarget, and Jigsaw, from the AppExchange marketplace

Results

  • Adoption has been strong, with sales and marketing users logging into Salesforce CRM on average five times per week
  • Salesforce CRM is now the backbone of Ariba’s sales and marketing functions; the company easily adds new applications from AppExchange as needs arise
  • Users without a programming background can build custom applications and extend the power of Salesforce CRM companywide
  • The company now ensures that all technology vendors integrate--or have plans to integrate with--Salesforce CRM before a purchase
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Full Case Study

Spend management solutions are vital to companies of all sizes and many of them rely on solutions from Ariba, Inc. to manage their operations. The company works to ensure customers achieve self-sufficiency and measurable business performance improvements by delivering spend management solutions. So when the company began looking for a customer relationship management system, salesforce.com, the leader in CRM, was a natural choice. Using Salesforce CRM  Enterprise Edition, Ariba gained a competitive edge and the ability to generate dashboards and reports to track sales and marketing efforts, among other things.

Ariba took things a step further and extended the Salesforce CRM platform well beyond sales force automation. The company has downloaded and installed numerous applications from the AppExchange marketplace, gaining capabilities for everything from e-mail marketing to customer data integration.

A One-Stop Shop for Applications

Adding new applications is as easy as clicking a button; deciding which of the hundreds of applications to choose from is the hard part. At Ariba, AppExchange is the first place Michele McMahon, a director at Ariba, says she looks when she needs a tool or is struggling from a functionality standpoint. On the AppExchange site, McMahon reads the descriptions and ratings and then downloads the applications they’re interested in to take advantage of free trials.

Salesforce CRM’s model makes it easy for companies like Ariba to test drive an application before purchasing. In fact, McMahon says she often downloads an application and puts stakeholders on the free trial to help justify the cost. This not only makes it easy to get executive backing for a purchase, but ensures there are no surprises after the application is purchased.

Free Trials Make the Purchasing Process Easy

When purchasing any new application, McMahon says a free trial is always the first thing she looks for. Next, she wants to know if the product integrates with Salesforce CRM. Because Salesforce CRM is so vital to Ariba’s sales and marketing efforts, McMahon says all potential vendors are asked whether there is a standard interface with Salesforce CRM.

"Salesforce is the backbone of all sales and marketing functions for Ariba," McMahon says. " Everyone’s looking for efficiencies and a competitive edge and we get both through integration with Salesforce and by test driving and downloading applications from the AppExchange."

Diverse Needs, Diverse Applications

When it needed an e-mail marketing system, Ariba again turned to AppExchange for a solution. Again, integration with Salesforce CRM was a key requirement. After exploring the different applications available on AppExchange, Ariba decided to download and test drive ExactTarget’s ExactTarget for AppExchange, which allows users to view real-time tracking information at the lead and contact level, as well as at an aggregate level. 

Now, the Ariba marketing team uses ExactTarget to send e-mail to customers. When a customer clicks through, ExactTarget automatically sends an alert to an inside sales person who can then place a timely call to that customer. ExactTarget also provides executives with key metrics such as open rates and click-through rates so that future marketing messages can be honed for effectiveness.

"Online marketing is extremely important for Ariba," McMahon explains. "ExactTarget has allowed us to approach prospective customers, but to also capitalize on click-throughs."

Ariba has also taken advantage of many of the free applications among the more than 700 in the AppExchange marketplace. For example, Ariba is currently test driving Salesforce CRM and Google AdWords, another free app that allows Ariba to measure the effectiveness of its Google advertising campaigns and Web site lead generation activity.

“If there is a need in our organization, we automatically turn to AppExchange," McMahon says. "The AppExchange makes me look like a hero to my boss. The free trial process makes it easy to justify the cost savings and takes the risk off of me. It also makes it a really easy buying decision because I’m not spending a lot of time trying to justify add-ons."

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