Improving Global Sales Processes at Enterasys

Networking equipment company deploys salesforce.com to 30 countries in under 90 days; integrates CRM with partner portal

Networking equipment company deploys salesforce.com to 30 countries in under 90 days; integrates CRM with partner portal

San Francisco — August 3, 2004 — Networking equipment company Enterasys Networks has deployed a Web-based customer relationship management (CRM) system from salesforce.com across 30 countries in 90 days in a move to support the company's global sales process improvement drive.

Based in Andover, Mass., Enterasys has about 1,400 employees worldwide, providing network infrastructure solutions for Global 2000 organizations. The company reported sales of $414.5 million in its 2003 fiscal year.

Seeking to improve its sales execution and increase the overall productivity of its sales team, as well as support its worldwide partner network, Enterasys embarked on a global sales process improvement initiative. The centerpiece of this initiative was implementing a more robust CRM solution.

Enterasys currently is using salesforce.com Enterprise Edition to manage its global customer and partner relationships. Following its selection of salesforce.com in August 2003, Enterasys deployed the "on-demand" CRM service to 30 countries in just 90 days, according to salesforce.com. The company also integrated the CRM system with its partner portal via the provider's sforce platform.

"We were looking for a CRM system to support our global sales process improvement initiative and give us tighter communication with our channel partners," said Michael Rivers, executive vice president for worldwide sales and service at Enterasys. "We also wanted it in 90 days — a nearly impossible goal. Salesforce.com was able to rise to the challenge. We rolled it out to all our countries in 90 days, and the sforce platform gave us full integration with our partner portal to enhance relationships with partners around the globe."

According to salesforce.com, Enterasys uses the CRM solution's customizable, real-time dashboards to guide critical business decisions, such as manufacturing demand planning. In addition, salesforce.com is allowing Enterasys to better collaborate across departments. For example, service support calls are managed within salesforce.com so that calls made by customers into the service center are transparent to the sales team. By providing a consistent, unified system for collecting and sharing customer information on a worldwide basis, salesforce.com enables greater visibility into sales opportunities across geographies, departments and management structure, the solution provider said.

In addition, integration between salesforce.com and Enterasys' growing partner portal via the sforce platform allows the company to streamline its important partner relationships. Through the integrated portal, partners can request special pricing, create valid configurations and convert quotes into an order. Orders are automatically accessible to salespeople directly from salesforce.com. Finally, partner-generated configurations and bill of materials are automatically connected with forecasting information to improve demand planning.

"Salesforce.com delivered implementation speed without sacrificing functionality, integration or flexibility of customization," Rivers said. "Sforce was extremely easy to use and our integrations remain intact as salesforce.com adds new functionality with each release. It has been a straight path to CRM success without a single detour."

Rivers added that he believes salesforce.com helps the company better communicate its "Secure Networks" strategy to iEnterasys' partners and customers. "Instead of worrying about CRM, we can focus on doing what we do best — helping customers to build an entire secure network from scratch or significantly enhance the security of a multi-vendor network," Rivers concluded.

For more information regarding "on demand" computing models, see the article "Cutting Through the 'On Demand' Hype," the Net Best Thing column in the December/January 2004 issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive.

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