Salesforce.com's Force.com Platform Synergizes Community-Based Efforts at Arlington Economic Development

Challenge

• Arlington Economic Development (AED) needed a CRM solution to enhance Arlington County's services to area businesses, real estate developers, and tourism interests
• After attempting to share contacts on a custom system, the company realized it needed a more robust solution to manage business and sales processes and communications flow across all 4 organizational units
• As a public sector organization, AED didn't fit the traditional sales paradigm and therefore needed to be able to customize its CRM solution to suit diverse businesses
• A large-scale relocation initiative called for a CRM offering that would seamlessly integrate with existing business processes

Solution

• After completing a six-month pilot with a competing CRM offering, AED found the strain on its technical staff too intense and the cost and learning curve too steep; Salesforce became the clear choice
• Implemented in three months, Salesforce offered AED a customizable, cost-effective solution that was so simple to use that business users rather than overburdened IT resources could administer it
• The company used Force.com to implement custom tabs for managing and tracking prospects, companies, and vendors and to create applications for the company's real estate development and internal communications groups
• Inspired by an AppExchange app, AED also created a custom project-management application to streamline its operations companywide
• The company successfully integrated Salesforce with Microsoft Outlook contacts, calendaring, and business cases for simple information access

Results

• Optimized communications across all 4 organizational units synergize company efforts
• The new project management application saves significant time and resources
• Access to comprehensive, intelligent information increases quality of service
• Customized terminology encourages quick and easy adoption among diverse users
• With all of the customer information now available in Salesforce, AED no longer needs to rely on in-office staff to coordinate projects and meetings; employees in the field have direct access to the information they need
• Less reliance on technical staff lowers IT costs and streamlines projects