August 21, 2000

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CRM Tools Offer Sales-Force Solutions

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When Craig Berkson, CIO at Thomson Financial Software Solutions, implemented a sales-force automation tool, he didn't look far. "We were a Vantive Support client already," Berkson says. The 350-member sales force for Thomson Financial Software Solutions, part of $1.44 billion information provider Thomson Financial, uses Vantive Sales in its client-server incarnation. Berkson hopes to upgrade to Vantive's Internet-only eSales product soon.

Thomson needed a sales-force automation tool to consolidate sales information across customers around the world, Berkson says. Before, sales reps worked independently with different systems and had to consolidate information into a spreadsheet, which the sales manager then manually reconciled with data in different formats from other sales reps. Sales reps and managers were spending a lot of time on administrative tasks. "Now, producing a sales pipeline report can be done in five seconds, and salespeople can focus on managing relationships," Berkson says.

But there's more to successful sales than simply installing a sales-force automation tool. Companies must revamp sales processes as part of the SFA implementation process; otherwise, the tool merely automates inefficient processes. "The tool was an enabler of process changes," says Toshiba America Medical Systems' Stewart of his combined sales process redesign-SFA tool implementation. "It was important that we did both at the same time." (See story, "Tips For Making Sales-Force Automation Projects Successful").

Digital color printing maker and Siebel customer Indigo America took the reverse approach when it implemented Siebel Sales. "Choosing the product went very fast," says Ronnie Ben-Zion, business information systems manager at Indigo America, the Woburn, Mass., sales and service subsidiary of Indigo N.V. in Maastricht, the Netherlands. "We found out that Siebel was No. 1 in the market, and we looked at its functions. It had exactly what we needed, so we bought it." Coordinating sales functions between Indigo's U.S. and European sales operations came later. "Everyone was committed to the solution. We had to find a way to make it work," Ben-Zion says.

And it works for Indigo America. "Before implementing Siebel, we were using different applications in the United States and Europe," Ben-Zion says. But not all sales reps used either system. "We couldn't get valuable information, such as pipeline and forecasting information," says Ben-Zion. In the two years since Indigo implemented Siebel, Ben-Zion says it has begun to use the system fully. "Management can log on to the Web site and find pipeline information. It's a great tool for distributing leads after a trade show," he says.

Although companies say they can see benefits from implementing sales-force automation tools, most don't justify the return on investment in hard dollars. As SFA consultant Dickson points out, "To get the project approved, you may have to come up with a cost analysis for top management. But getting rid of headaches and making things go smoothly are more-compelling reasons for implementing an SFA tool."

Depending on the implementation, these tools can represent a significant investment--from $2,500 to $3,500 per user license, or millions of dollars for large companies with tens of thousands of users. Each SFA tool or tool suite provides many of the same core functions, such as contact and sales pipeline management. Beyond the basics, the value of other functions--for example, packages that calculate product quotes or tools that integrate SFA data with telesales or inventory functions--varies from company to company.

Nantucket Nectars' Farris is a fan of packages that calculate sales commissions. "Sales reps spend a lot of time checking their commissions on a particular deal, and they never 100% trust what the company says," Farris says. Online calculations that reps can access will increase productivity, he adds.

Vantive's ability to enable collaboration is justification enough for Thomson Financial. "We need to coordinate on global sales, to have people across offices participating on a deal," Berkson says. "We couldn't do that before, and it's made easier by having a common system."

Coleman Barney, senior VP and co-founder of E-business consultant company SBI, agrees that enabling collaboration is one of the main strengths of sales-force automation tools. When SBI implemented SFA tools, it did so to foster team selling. The tool coordinates sales cycle among a variety of departments, including financial and legal. But SBI didn't choose an SFA product from a CRM vendor. "CRM solutions are overkill for most people in the marketplace," Barney says.

Two years ago, SBI implemented SalesLogix, a standalone SFA solution, and Barney is happy with its opportunity-management features. However, he acknowledges that many companies need broader tools. "The more complex the selling model, the more necessary it is to have a CRM tool," he says.

Aberdeen Group's Pombriant says the threshold at which full-fledged CRM tools are helpful differs from company to company. Analysts concur that it's important to pick a tool that can change with a company's changing needs. According to Gartner Group's DeSisto, companies rarely implement an SFA solution from a CRM vendor right out of the box. Customization is nearly always required.

Ben-Zion says Indigo America's stripped-down implementation came close. Siebel's customization tools were key to the implementation's success, he says, but he used the tools to simplify the user interface, not to add more features. "Even things that looked like they were nice to have, like automating processes, we didn't do. I took views and fields away," he says. Indigo's small budget provided a benefit: Sales reps adopted the system "because we didn't ask them to enter too much information," he says.

Barney says there will be more shakeout in the already-volatile CRM market in the next few years, particularly in products aimed at E-commerce. Partnerships also will be on the rise. Siebel is set to unveil a relationship with OneSource, a provider of browser-based business and financial information. Under the deal, Siebel will integrate OneSource into its Siebel Sales tool so that sales reps can see data about prospects and customers.

OneSource is available as a standalone product; users log on to OneSource separately. The agreement makes the transition between packages transparent. "The more context you place around any corporate entity in a CRM system, the better you'll be at sales," says Ed Hutchinson, director of marketing at OneSource.

"The most frustrating thing is to have to go through a lot of screens," says Toshiba America Medical Systems' Stewart. "Give me one page I can download onto a Palm."

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Photo of Stewart by Robert Burroughs

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