Zeus Technology Reduces Sales Forecast Preparation from Two Days per Week to 10 Minutes Per Week with Salesforce SFA

Challenge

• UK based application traffic management software provider reliant on primitive, spreadsheet-based forecasting system
• Manual forecasting system took two days per week to compile, complete and share
• Pipeline management was based on anecdotal comments and e-mails from Account Managers
• Previous standalone Act CRM system was unpopular and not integrated with the company’s bespoke ERP system

Solution

• Zeus Technology deployed Salesforce SFA to 30 sales professionals in seven countries (UK, US, France, Germany, Finland, Spain and Italy)
• Salesforce.com chosen in preference to SugarCRM based on flexibility, ease of use and speed of implementation
• Salesforce SFA provides comprehensive activity tracking, calendaring, activity history and real time alerts
• On-demand system supports wide range of reports and dashboards, including packaged reports, real time dashboards, win-loss analysis and pipeline analysis
• Zeus is using the Force.com platform to customize multiple fields, objects and records
• US division has deployed Jigsaw on-demand application from salesforce.com’s AppExchange to provide complete business contact information

Results

• Reduced time taken to prepare monthly forecast from two days per week to 10 minutes per week
• Played a pivotal role in helping Zeus Technology grow seamlessly from five sales professionals to 30 with barely any complications
• Point-and-click customization enabled Zeus to rapidly and effectively tailor Salesforce SFA to meet the unique needs of the application traffic management software provider
• Provided almost instantaneous access to critical sales data—either online, offline or via mobile devices
• Allowed Zeus to track activities, ensuring no sales opportunities were missed or delayed
• Zeus intends in due course to deploy Salesforce Call Center and use salesforce.com to underpin forthcoming partner portal