SparesFinder Executes Marketing Campaigns in Hours—Rather Than Days—with Salesforce

"We are able to manage our sales opportunities far better, with a higher level of communication. Before implementing Salesforce, we were wasting time discussing information on contacts. Now we are sharing the same data and spend the time more productively discussing how to manage and grow the business."

Overview
Challenge
  • A major challenge for sparesFinder is to do for itself in relation to customers what it already does for clients' inventory. In other words, keep track of its client base of over 100 global organisations with subscribers based in 50 countries, as well as its prospects list.
Solution
  • After investigating a number of packages, sparesFinder selected Salesforce. The application took about half a day to set up and another half day for data import. Sales forecasts that were prepared monthly now are accessible on a daily basis. "It is far more efficient and far more accurate," says sparesFinder's David Stroud.
Results
  • sparesFinder identifies a number of major benefits of Salesforce including productivity gains in sales, support, and marketing.
Full Story

sparesFinder is a business-to-business, global company that helps organisations better manage, market, and dispose of its idle or used capital equipment or spares by making use of the Internet. Many large organisations have significant assets tied up in spares and inventory but fail to exploit this resource because of poor identification, tracking, and recording of parts.

One example of how sparesFinder assists clients is BAT. BAT used sparesFinder to load data from many of its 73 worldwide sites. After running a number of management reports, BAT was able to identify huge potential for exchange of materials between its various facilities. In some cases there were spares from manufacturing equipment that had been scrapped many years previously. In other locations these machines were running but spare parts were no longer available.

Initially sparesFinder began to develop a CRM solution in-house using Lotus Notes. The company was close to developing a bespoke system when one of the key developers left the company.

The next option considered was to develop Microsoft Outlook to meet sparesFinder's needs. "We found, however, that we were developing beyond the range of Outlook," comments David Stroud, CEO at sparesFinder.

There were a number of limitations with Outlook, including accessibility when salespeople were on the road. In addition, Stroud found Outlook was limited in terms of recording multiple contacts across a global corporation and its subsidiaries.

sparesFinder then examined a number of CRM packages that could be installed on its client/server platform. "Many of these, such as Great Plains, were very good but too expensive," says Stroud. He estimates that a client/server solution would have cost an initial £50,000. "Frankly, I don't see the sense in paying a large fee up front, plus heavy consulting installation costs, and then paying another 20 percent per annum for nothing," he says.

"When we tried Salesforce we couldn't believe how good it was. We were bowled over by it," comments Stroud. Salesforce took Stroud about half a day to set up and another half day to import the data. sparesFinder now has 2,000 contacts in the database, which is scaleable to almost any level.

Salesforce has increased productivity in a number of ways. "We are able to manage our sales opportunities far better, and the level of communication with salespeople is now on a higher level," says Stroud. "Before implementing the service we were wasting time discussing information on contacts. Now we are sharing the same data and spend the time more productively discussing how to manage and grow the business."

sparesFinder operates a globally dispersed sales team. Previously sales forecasts were prepared on individual spreadsheets and had to be compiled every month. Now sales forecasts can be accessed on a daily basis. "It is far more efficient and far more accurate," says Stroud.

Salesforce has also provided sparesFinder productivity gains in the marketing and support areas. "We recently completed two mass email campaigns using Salesforce," says Stroud. "In the past this would have taken two days to set up. It took us less than two hours this time, and the response was much better because it was far better targeted."

The value of spareFinders' Web site is enhanced using Salesforce's Web-to-leads functionality. Enquiries or requests on the sparesFinder Web site are integrated into the Salesforce database. Thus Web traffic leads are captured on a 24/7 basis, and the Web site is exploited as a global marketing and sales tool far more effectively than in the past.


View All Snapshots