Worldwide Salesforce Implementation Spurs Productivity and B2B Sales at Carlson Companies

“I hear that Salesforce is a reflection of Carlson. The fact that different groups are selling products and services under a common umbrella is what makes Salesforce invaluable to sales and account management professionals—and what makes Carlson invaluable to our customers.”


Challenge
  • Carlson Companies—a privately held international corporation in the marketing, service, travel, and hospitality industries—wanted a single, centralized platform for all B2B account information
  • The company had multiple CRM systems, making it difficult to leverage data across five B2B-focused operating groups
  • With users in 120 countries, the system needed to be easily accessible anytime, anywhere
  • Carlson wanted a system that could provide functionality beyond sales force automation such as track sales performance, improve customer knowledge, and provide insight on how to best grow revenue

Solution
  • Carlson Companies selected Salesforce Enterprise Edition, deploying it to 1,400 users in five operating groups with the help of salesforce.com partner BenNevis
  • Microsoft Outlook integration merges existing contact data into Salesforce, which reps can sync with their RIM BlackBerry devices via Force.com Mobile
  • Carlson integrated Salesforce to reservations and booking systems such as SeaWare and Meeting Broker, as well as to proprietary in-house applications
  • A custom S-Control, “Staged Based Opportunity Management” allows sales representatives to manage opportunities directly from within Salesforce
  • Custom dashboards that output as a PDF or in Excel, along with reporting, empower management with greater insight into sales activities

Results
  • Salesforce has allowed Carlson to eliminate the need for manual, administrative processes and underperforming legacy systems—resulting in saved time and money
  • Strong user adoption drives sales; the Hotels Group saw 100 percent adoption two months after deploying Salesforce and averages a 50 percent daily login rate
  • With all data in one centralized location, users can easily retrieve critical account information
  • The elimination of system redundancy leads to consistency and reduced maintenance issues, freeing IT to focus on other projects
 
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