International Publisher Reduces Sales Opportunity Closure Time by 30 Percent with salesforce.com

Challenge

• Leading international publisher of graduate recruitment content based in The Netherlands was relying on home-grown CRM system to manage customer relationships
• On-premise home-grown system demanded disproportionate amount of people, time and resources to maintain and develop
• International subsidiaries (UK, Germany, Belgium, China, South Africa, Spain and Switzerland) each reliant on local, fragmented sales management system
• Minimal sales reporting from the regions

Solution

• Deployed multi-tenant, on-demand Salesforce SFA system to 28 sales professionals in eight
  countries to build unified picture of all communities involved in the sales process
• Sales pipeline, opportunities and activities all contained in single, easy to use global information
  management system
• Deployed Project and Issue Management tools from the AppExchange for rapid access to pre-built
  application
• System customized extensively by the users without intervention from technical support staff
• Chose salesforce.com, based on the on-demand model, ease of use, straightforward customization
  and rapid deployment

Results

• Reduced average time between sales opportunity being identified and closed by 30 percent
  Ensured 24/7 insight into sales pipeline and sales management
• Allowed the company to make a quantum leap forward in professionalism, by moving to best
  practice marketing campaign management and intimate and effective sales relationships
• Created comprehensive historical record of customer information: eliminating occasions where
  critical data was discarded or lost in silos
• Enabled the company to effectively manage regional sales territories consistently and efficiently
• Allowed all sales communities worldwide to speak the same sales language
• Ensured decision making is based on quantified metric evidence, not 'gut feel'