Growing businesses are always looking for scalable solutions when it comes to IT, and SaaS offers just that. Ramco Systems, a global provider of agile enterprise software and services recently deployed Salesforce SFA (sales force automation) in order to improve lead management and sales effectiveness.

“Our business is growing and to successfully expand further we require a system that supports our sales team and improves their ability to track and close more deals,” said Barbara Angius Saxby, chief marketing officer, Ramco.

Need for speed

Spread over 9 countries, Ramco’s employees working in different geographies managed their sales and marketing data through custom CRM applications. An increase in customer base meant more data, complex information and a need to constantly maintain their grip on upcoming opportunities. The earlier system left much to be desired in terms of organising the complex data and providing a clearer view of customer information and sales targets. Time and agility in looking at deals, reviewing opportunities in the pipeline and managing annual revenue targets was essential. They needed a system that could show them the figures in one single view rather than having to go through multiple CRM applications.

After considering other offerings like ACT 2, Salesforce.com’s SFA stood out on account of it’s on-demand, easy-to-use and comprehensive solution that provides powerful opportunity management, forecasting, reporting, and customisation capabilities. The most powerful advantage it offered however, was that it was simple to implement.

According to D Raghuram, CTO, Advanced Technology Research, “Information could be shared between sales and marketing teams in real time. This tracking feature ultimately helps in enhancing the productivity of sales teams and helps them close more deals.”

The Point and Click Approach

Ramco deployed the Enterprise Edition of Salesforce SFA, which includes functionalities like account and activity management, forecasting, client management and workflow rules.

The on demand SaaS model enabled them to execute the phased deployment within 6 weeks, even though the planned time period was between 6-8 weeks. Aaron Katz, VP, Corporate Sales, Asia Pacific, Salesforce.com describes, "Being internet based, this model provides the inherent advantageous edge of using a centrally maintained multitenet architecture in which all users and applications share a single, common infrastructure and code base. Customisation is possible without any programming; it’s just a point and click installation, and upgrades are automatic; any new features are seamlessly integrated with the existing environment." This saves not just time on making decisions, but also huge investments.

Badri S Narayan, Global Strategic Partnerships, Ramco explains, “Salesforce SFA provides us with the ability to slice the data and bring relevant customer, product and deal information to the forefront, thereby helping sales personnel to close the maximum number of deals and reduce administrative processes. This fulfills our requirement of an application being agile and flexible and is in line with our mission statement.”

The simplistic edge

Salesforce SFA provided simplicity of execution and simplicity of use, ultimately resulting in simplicity of data representation as well. Saxby reflects, “As the sales team becomes more accustomed to the system, they’re appreciating the time it saves them and allows them to concentrate on continuously growing the business.”

Although too early to comment on the RoI, Raghuram confirmed that the system was performing at its optimal level. There are plans to integrate the application with their ERP system in the near future.