Our karma
On September 10, a mini-revolution occurred at the North American office of Kaspersky Lab. Instead of the old electronic system for managing relationships with clients and partners, through which all transactions, analytics and communication went, a new KARMA (Kaspersky Relationships Management), created on the Salesforce.com powerful CRM platform, has been launched. Why did the project team work round-the-clock and what prospects are now opening up in relations with American partners?
Why do we need KARMA
- The project for the development and implementation of KARMA turned out to be as difficult as it was revolutionary. The goal of the system is to globally standardize business processes throughout the company's corporate business, in order to get a completely transparent set of data on partners and corporate clients of Kaspersky Lab.
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The need for a new CRM system has long been recognized by the company. Regions with developed markets (Western Europe, USA and Canada) are extremely heterogeneous in their structure, so a single sales scheme and marketing process did not exist until recently. On the one hand, it was good, because we were very close to the “fields”, on the other hand, it was bad: when it was necessary to change something, we had to do it ten times, and each of them was different.
New CRM-system should simplify the work of our sales and marketing. Communication with customers will be easier, more efficient and less time consuming.
Until now, we have used the Microsoft Dynamics system, but today we have grown out of it, it no longer helps us to solve basic tasks. The tool from the company Salesforce was the best alternative.
How the system works
The basis of KARMA solution is Salesforce CRM-system, which automates the sales planning work, reflects the fact of sales, provides a comparison of the plan and the fact, accumulates information about our customers and partners. The second major component is an open Internet portal for our partners, where they leave their requests for potential sales. Requests fall into the same Salesforce, and on their basis, our managers build their sales forecast.
The third component shows the actually placed orders for our products and services. In the system, there is a functionality for comparing a transaction previously registered by partners (the intention to buy our product) and the order actually placed. Thus, we understand how the planned sales relate to actual sales.
By the way, Salesforce is very convenient because you can buy various functional components to the base system. For example, one of these utilities helps to formulate and send quotas to our distributors on the basis of a commercial offer with just one click! Now the last settings are in progress, and in the near future this functionality will be launched.
One of the main tasks in the implementation of the system is the adaptation of the standard Salesforce functionality to the needs of our business. The functionality was laid a huge number of opportunities to optimize the daily work of users, taking into account all the specifics of the sale and promotion of our products in the highly competitive software market.
Actually, CARMA is the result of Salesforce customization for our needs.
What is useful KARMA
The new solution has several advantages. So, in order.
Save time and effort
KARMA makes life easier for our marketing and sales professionals. They no longer have to take ten steps that can be “packaged” with one click of a button. Now they spend 1-2 hours a day on administrative work "manually" - this is too much. Our task is to simplify and speed up the activities of employees in the system as much as possible, automate what previously had to be done “on the knee”, and minimize the risk of typing and calculation errors.
Analytics
Now we can be compared to a person who is driving at a speed of 200 km / h, but at the same time looking at the road only in the rear-view mirror, and his windshield is black. We also mainly look back (at reporting and so on). And for good sales, where you need a quick response and the ability to anticipate the required volumes, this is not enough. In marketing, the situation is similar: it is very difficult to figure out what the specific results of our actions will be. For example, what will bring greater income: an exhibition with a budget of $ 100 thousand or an online campaign worth $ 20 thousand? KARMA will allow us to "be smarter."
Partner incentives
There is not a single client left on the market who does not have any kind of antivirus or antispyware protection. So every time we sell a new product to a customer, we force out one of its competitors. And the easier it is for partners to conduct business with us, the more they love us and the more often they offer their customers to use our products.
With the KARMA system, partners will get a convenient and fast interface with our sales specialists and marketers, they will know what their current status and sales volumes are. And we, in turn, will see what kind of deals the partners are working on and will be able to help them in time to bring the matter to the conclusion of the contract.
It is great that now we can take the whole process “at a glance”. If the manager and the partner agree that in a certain year his sales should amount to $ 1 million, determine the quarterly breakdown of income based on the sales of the partner, then we will no longer spend time discussing the numbers. These numbers will be in the system, and we will decide how to optimize the work in order to increase them in the future. We will not only see how partners lead sales, but also whether their promises are consistent with how they work.
Chatter function
This is something like a social network, which provides opportunities for informal communication within the company on issues related to the work of Salesforce. The function provides an opportunity to contact with colleagues around the world with some question, and there will always be someone who has experience in solving such a question.
What's next?
Of course, there are still enough problems, and this is absolutely normal for a solution of this magnitude. During the trainings, we gradually teach people how to use the KARMA toolkit. There are certain issues regarding data cleanliness, since Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce use several different models for them. But this moment is also being decided.
Anyway, on September 10, we “turned on the switch” for the USA and Canada, stopped user access to Microsoft Dynamics, activated Salesforce. Real transactions have been going through the system for a month and a half.
We are currently negotiating with several offices in Europe and the UK: discussing which regions we will be launching KARMA further, demonstrating the overall flexibility and scalability of the chosen and implemented solution. In North America, we are still working to stabilize the system, complementing the already implemented functionality and fulfilling new user requirements. It always happens like this: when people dive deeper into a product, they begin to express their wishes more actively. All this is fixed, nothing is wasted. For example, it is planned to further develop the functionality for marketers: it will introduce a separate solution that will improve the process of collecting information about future customers.
Tell us what you think about Salesforce and what CRM solutions do you find to meet the requirements of companies of our size?
Why do we need KARMA
- The project for the development and implementation of KARMA turned out to be as difficult as it was revolutionary. The goal of the system is to globally standardize business processes throughout the company's corporate business, in order to get a completely transparent set of data on partners and corporate clients of Kaspersky Lab.
')
The need for a new CRM system has long been recognized by the company. Regions with developed markets (Western Europe, USA and Canada) are extremely heterogeneous in their structure, so a single sales scheme and marketing process did not exist until recently. On the one hand, it was good, because we were very close to the “fields”, on the other hand, it was bad: when it was necessary to change something, we had to do it ten times, and each of them was different.
New CRM-system should simplify the work of our sales and marketing. Communication with customers will be easier, more efficient and less time consuming.
Until now, we have used the Microsoft Dynamics system, but today we have grown out of it, it no longer helps us to solve basic tasks. The tool from the company Salesforce was the best alternative.
How the system works
The basis of KARMA solution is Salesforce CRM-system, which automates the sales planning work, reflects the fact of sales, provides a comparison of the plan and the fact, accumulates information about our customers and partners. The second major component is an open Internet portal for our partners, where they leave their requests for potential sales. Requests fall into the same Salesforce, and on their basis, our managers build their sales forecast.
The third component shows the actually placed orders for our products and services. In the system, there is a functionality for comparing a transaction previously registered by partners (the intention to buy our product) and the order actually placed. Thus, we understand how the planned sales relate to actual sales.
By the way, Salesforce is very convenient because you can buy various functional components to the base system. For example, one of these utilities helps to formulate and send quotas to our distributors on the basis of a commercial offer with just one click! Now the last settings are in progress, and in the near future this functionality will be launched.
One of the main tasks in the implementation of the system is the adaptation of the standard Salesforce functionality to the needs of our business. The functionality was laid a huge number of opportunities to optimize the daily work of users, taking into account all the specifics of the sale and promotion of our products in the highly competitive software market.
Actually, CARMA is the result of Salesforce customization for our needs.
What is useful KARMA
The new solution has several advantages. So, in order.
Save time and effort
KARMA makes life easier for our marketing and sales professionals. They no longer have to take ten steps that can be “packaged” with one click of a button. Now they spend 1-2 hours a day on administrative work "manually" - this is too much. Our task is to simplify and speed up the activities of employees in the system as much as possible, automate what previously had to be done “on the knee”, and minimize the risk of typing and calculation errors.
Analytics
Now we can be compared to a person who is driving at a speed of 200 km / h, but at the same time looking at the road only in the rear-view mirror, and his windshield is black. We also mainly look back (at reporting and so on). And for good sales, where you need a quick response and the ability to anticipate the required volumes, this is not enough. In marketing, the situation is similar: it is very difficult to figure out what the specific results of our actions will be. For example, what will bring greater income: an exhibition with a budget of $ 100 thousand or an online campaign worth $ 20 thousand? KARMA will allow us to "be smarter."
Partner incentives
There is not a single client left on the market who does not have any kind of antivirus or antispyware protection. So every time we sell a new product to a customer, we force out one of its competitors. And the easier it is for partners to conduct business with us, the more they love us and the more often they offer their customers to use our products.
With the KARMA system, partners will get a convenient and fast interface with our sales specialists and marketers, they will know what their current status and sales volumes are. And we, in turn, will see what kind of deals the partners are working on and will be able to help them in time to bring the matter to the conclusion of the contract.
It is great that now we can take the whole process “at a glance”. If the manager and the partner agree that in a certain year his sales should amount to $ 1 million, determine the quarterly breakdown of income based on the sales of the partner, then we will no longer spend time discussing the numbers. These numbers will be in the system, and we will decide how to optimize the work in order to increase them in the future. We will not only see how partners lead sales, but also whether their promises are consistent with how they work.
Chatter function
This is something like a social network, which provides opportunities for informal communication within the company on issues related to the work of Salesforce. The function provides an opportunity to contact with colleagues around the world with some question, and there will always be someone who has experience in solving such a question.
What's next?
Of course, there are still enough problems, and this is absolutely normal for a solution of this magnitude. During the trainings, we gradually teach people how to use the KARMA toolkit. There are certain issues regarding data cleanliness, since Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce use several different models for them. But this moment is also being decided.
Anyway, on September 10, we “turned on the switch” for the USA and Canada, stopped user access to Microsoft Dynamics, activated Salesforce. Real transactions have been going through the system for a month and a half.
We are currently negotiating with several offices in Europe and the UK: discussing which regions we will be launching KARMA further, demonstrating the overall flexibility and scalability of the chosen and implemented solution. In North America, we are still working to stabilize the system, complementing the already implemented functionality and fulfilling new user requirements. It always happens like this: when people dive deeper into a product, they begin to express their wishes more actively. All this is fixed, nothing is wasted. For example, it is planned to further develop the functionality for marketers: it will introduce a separate solution that will improve the process of collecting information about future customers.
Tell us what you think about Salesforce and what CRM solutions do you find to meet the requirements of companies of our size?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/159443/
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