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• Replace complex, hard-to-use CRM systems with one easy-to-use and more-responsive solution
• Integrate two large enterprise sales forces—from Symantec and its merger with Veritas— quickly

• Following its merger with Veritas Software in July 2005, Symantec consolidated and replaced disparate sales force automation (SFA) silos with Salesforce SFA, to help develop consistent sales processes globally and ensure data quality. With an aggressive global rollout timeframe, Symantec enlisted Salesforce Professional Services to keep the implementation on time, on track, and under budget. Salesforce became a platform to facilitate the integration of the two enterprise sales forces.

• Symantec implemented Salesforce SFA in 3.5 months to 3,900 users in 40 countries, achieving one agile, global sales force
• Change Management cycles have decreased from 3-5 months to monthly 
• User adoption exceeded expectations, helping to achieve the company’s vision of one global sales force post-merger

Symantec is a global leader in infrastructure software, enabling businesses and consumers to have confidence in a connected world. The company helps customers protect their infrastructure, information, and interactions by delivering software and services that address risks to security, availability, compliance, and performance. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in 40 countries.

With the close of the company’s merger with Veritas Software, Symantec capitalized on the opportunity to replace its myriad on-premises CRM systems with one centralized solution that would accommodate the integration of multiple systems and sales forces.

Prior to Salesforce, post-merger Symantec had four disparate SFA systems, creating silos of customer data. Not only did Symantec need to consolidate these systems, but the company was faced with the demands of integrating Veritas’ sales reps into its existing sales force. A smooth unification was critical. “We needed a scalable, intuitive solution, and we needed it fast,” Shortt explains. “The merger presented the best opportunity to rethink our CRM strategy.”

Winning Choice for Ease of Use and Performance

The evaluation project team started the global sales integration process by engaging sales people from the start. The solution evaluation was conducted in two stages: The first stage measured Salesforce against the existing on-premise solution. The next stage tested Salesforce against other on-demand solutions. In the end, Salesforce prevailed. “Throughout the trials, our users chose Salesforce hands-down as their system of choice,” says Shortt.

In the end, Symantec chose to replace all the existing systems with Salesforce for its ease of use and superior performance—even in remote sites. "Best practices were built into the system via the intuitive user interface, which made training and adoption quite easy. The salesforce.com on-demand delivery model was what we ultimately saw as key to getting the 3,900 people on one tool," says Shortt.

Laying the Foundation for CRM and Merger Success

The first order of business involved process design. To ensure the successful integration of the enterprise systems and sales forces, the project team focused on defining business processes early and getting executives to make decisions and commit to them. The team conducted eight process-review sessions globally in one month, spanning the entire sales organization, including inside sales, field sales, renewals, lead management, channel management, and sales operations.

Once these teams reached consensus on Symantec's global sales processes, the project team then focused on ensuring that the new enterprisewide Salesforce SFA application was positioned for long-term CRM success. With an aggressive global rollout timeframe, the company enlisted the Salesforce Professional Services team to keep the implementation on time and under budget: In 3.5 months, Symantec deployed the solution to 3,900 users in 40 countries, in 11 languages.

The project team also focused on data quality and migration, merging and deduplicating customer data from the disparate silos. Training development was another major area of focus, helping ensure that the entire sales force shared the same sales methodology and language.

To enhance and support all sales processes, the team delivered robust sales force automation functionality, including integration with other enterprise and partner systems. Salesforce.com’s on-demand solution and ease of configuration made such rapid and flexible deployment possible. "We went from being constrained by the tool to being constrained only by our imagination in what we can do with the system," Shortt says.

Realizing an Agile, Global Sales Force

Because Salesforce is 100 percent on demand, users can easily and instantly access the system throughout the world. Plus, Salesforce SFA's ability to instantaneously add new languages made the deployment a huge success for Symantec's large, global sales force.

In fact, sales rep adoption, as measured by active use of the system, has greatly exceeded expectations. More important, the nature of sales adoption has changed. "The attitude has changed dramatically from using the stick to reinforce selling process to using a carrot," Shortt explains. With high and willing user adoption, Symantec has found that the accuracy of the pipeline also increased.

Ultimately, Symantec discovered that Salesforce can move as fast as its business. "With Salesforce we were able to shrink our release cycles from a 3-to-5-month wait to a monthly release cycle,” says Shortt. "With consistent performance and ease of use, we now react quickly to business needs on a global scale. This translates to greater efficiencies and long-term sales success across our entire organization."

With the Salesforce implementation, the Symantec team achieved its vision of one global sales force post-merger. "Salesforce became a platform on which to merge the two companies seamlessly, while streamlining processes companywide," says Shortt.