Fujitsu Network Communications (FNC), a supplier of IT and telecom tools, is using Salesforce CRM to drive its retention and growth efforts in 2009.
With Salesforce CRM, which is integrated into its back-end SAP system, FNC is tracking customer accounts, managing orders and forecasting sales. The Salesforce CRM platform acts as a single repository for all of FNC’s customer data.
“We didn’t have a formal sales process in the sense of using a CRM tool,” said Jeff Meier, SVP and CIO for FNC. “Before, there were some areas of our sales force that were more advanced in how they collected account contact information and tracked opportunities and managed leads. With Salesforce, the leader of our sales team was able to implement a standard process of how we sell and support our customer base. The big thing was establishing that formal sales process by using a CRM tool.
“It improved our ability to support customers and respond in a much quicker and more accurate manner,” he added. “The majority of our sales are done through a direct model, so Salesforce is critical to how we do in the marketplace.”
Direct mail, e-mail blasts and webinars are all part of the FNC direct marketing arsenal. Its new CRM tool gives the sales team access to a large amount of data and improves its ability to track these campaigns.
FNC chose Salesforce after many years of testing and discarding other CRM systems — an unusual approach for the company, which usually holds more formal RFPs. The decision was helped along by the fact that other Fujitsu subsidiaries were already using Salesforce products.
In the near future, FNC will probably add new formats, templates and other functionality to its Salesforce platform. The company also is exploring ways to use Salesforce to improve its internal e-mail system.
The end goal for FNC is to maintain its dominance with large corporate customers in the market and increase its accounts in federal government and education, the company said.
