Friday 03 September 2010
Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced that OPENLANE, Inc., an industry leading online auction company for automotive dealers to buy and sell wholesale vehicles, is greatly improving its business success with the use of Force.com. OPENLANE leveraged the Force.com enterprise cloud computing platform to integrate different enterprise systems to easily share dealer information across internal groups, and also developed multiple custom applications to support its rapidly growing business. Building on Force.com enabled OPENLANE to complete its custom development faster than it would have required with on-premise development.
“As we built our company, we originally utilized on premise enterprise software and systems that weren’t ideally suited for our business,” said Andrew Iorgulescu, Vice President of Business and Dealer Development at OPENLANE. “As the company grew, we sought out the flexibility of a cloud computing solution and began to utilize Salesforce CRM to manage and enhance our relationships with dealers. After implementing functionality to manage dealer relationships, we began to add other processes in order to drive customer intimacy to higher levels. Designing and building custom applications on the Force.com platform had significant appeal when we realized it could be done more quickly and at significantly less cost than we expected. The results are greater levels of responsiveness and service for our rapidly growing dealer base.”
Today, OPENLANE has custom solutions for dealer sales, customer inquiries, vehicle arbitrations, collections, and more — all built using Force.com and created to meet the company’s specific business needs. Further, both Salesforce CRM (http://www.salesforce.com/) and the custom applications were fully integrated with the industry leading OPENLANE auction platforms, SAP financials and other legacy database systems.
“Salesforce CRM and Force.com have been integral in helping us to optimize our business, and we’ve even added some applications from the AppExchange and a Customer Portal to gain additional benefits,” commented Iorgulescu. “We now have a solution that integrates multiple customer touch points across several systems into one efficient platform. This solution allows our internal development teams to focus their efforts on enhancing OPENLANE’s unique auction platforms while delivering a better experience for our dealer customers.”
Force.com - the Industry’s Leading Enterprise Cloud Computing Platform:
* Force.com is salesforce.com’s enterprise cloud computing platform (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/cloud-platform/)
* Force.com provides everything companies need to quickly build and deliver business applications in the cloud, including the database, unlimited real-time customization, powerful analytics, real-time workflow and approvals, programmable cloud logic, integration, real-time mobile deployment, programmable user interface and Web site capabilities
* Customers and partners have built more than 120,000 custom applications on Force.com to run their businesses, including, supply chain management, compliance tracking, brand management, accounts receivable, claims processing, time-off applications and much more
* Force.com enables companies to build and deliver applications 5 times faster, at about the cost of traditional client/server software platforms: http://www.salesforce.com/platform/tco/
* Here’s a video on how to get started building apps on Force.com: http://www.youtube.com/user/sfdcMktg#play/uploads/24/QkRbzd3vxHU
OPENLANE is one of the 63,200 companies of all sizes, industries and geographies that comprised the salesforce.com customer base as of July 31, 2009. Revenue and subscribers will be recognized as the service is delivered.
About OPENLANE
OPENLANE, Inc. is a leading online auction company in North America for automotive dealers to buy and sell wholesale vehicles. The company offers end-to-end auto remarketing solutions to auto manufacturers, captive finance companies, lease and daily rental companies, financial institutions and wholesale auto auctions throughout the United States and Canada. OPENLANE powers online remarketing programs for American Honda Finance, Audi Financial Services, Avis Budget Group, Chase Auto Finance, Chrysler Financial, Porsche Financial Services, Volkswagen Credit, among others. For more information, please visit www.openlane.com or call +1 (866) 969-0321.
About Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company. The company’s portfolio of Salesforce CRM applications, available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the ways that companies collaborate and communicate with their customers across sales, marketing and service. The company’s Force.com platform (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/) helps customers, partners and developers to quickly build powerful business applications to run every part of the enterprise in the cloud. Based on salesforce.com’s real-time, multitenant architecture, Salesforce CRM and Force.com offer the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing.
As of July 31, 2009, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 62,300 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM”. For more information please visithttp://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
Copyright (c) 2009 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce and the “no software” logo are registered trademarks of salesforce.com, inc., and salesforce.com owns other registered and unregistered trademarks. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Since the advent of modern technology, business processes, academic researches, and leisure activities have been easily accessible through the use of the Internet. The Internet, with its seemingly never-ending horizon, is able to keep all information intact through the use of the Cloud.
The Cloud pertains to all the documents or files kept by servers from remote locations that can be accessed through the Internet. Storing data through the Cloud makes it easy for all the parties concerned to be able to retrieve the information they need. Within the Cloud, users may be able to store and manage their files for personal use, or for other users to be able to utilize it. This is a necessary process in most businesses, since this makes communication and exchange of information more efficient, and allows remote access to everyone.
As information is stored in the Cloud, there is a higher risk of having the data all mixed up, and this poses a problem for the businesses making use of the Cloud. To be able to manage it properly, cloud computing services should be availed. Cloud computing services through the use of cloud computing software paves the way to making the Cloud more organized such that it would be able to fulfill its purpose. Cloud computing applications is not limited to just storing data, rather, it provides a better venue for all business processes. Cloud computing hosting is offered by a lot of companies, and may prove very functional in any enterprise.
Cloud computing services provide the users of the Cloud better management of their information. This might save a company on expenses, since the company might not need its own IT team for technical support: the cloud computing services of companies that offer cloud computing hosting might be actually able to do the job. There is a lot of cloud computing software available today that offers provision of cloud computing applications such as the Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 makes access of other software functions convenient and ready for use or service. Cloud computing software by trusted companies and sites like Rackspace Cloud Hosting and Salesforce Software gives its users the option of having their data managed and stored in a separate storage device, instead of having them in their own computers and taking up disk space.
Rackspace Cloud Hosting, Salesforce Software, Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 are examples of how to optimize the applications through which cloud computing might be of significant help for the improvement of business processes. Running applications in Amazon EC2 and storing data in Amazon S3 has proven to be economical and efficient. Rackspace Cloud Hosting, on the other hand, provide managed hosting for all server configurations on a dedicated 24/7 availability. Salesforce Software ranges from sales applications to custom applications, depending on their users’ choice.
With Cloud computing applications available through cloud computing hosting, management of the Cloud is made more effective and less expensive. This ensures a great deal of profit and improvement in any business, and is even better for ensuring customer satisfaction.
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Download this cloud computing tutorial / cloud computing presentation as cloud computing pdf or cloud computing ppt
cloud-based ERP solutions
Compiere, Inc., the global leader in open source and cloud-based ERP solutions, today announced the availability of Compiere ERP Connector for Salesforce CRM on the AppExchange. Using patent-pending dynamic Web Services technology, the Compiere ERP Connector seamlessly integrates Compiere ERP with Salesforce CRM by synchronizing data between the two solutions, providing timely and accurate information for sales and accounting processes, accelerating opportunity-to-cash cycles, improving sales efficiencies and customer service. The Connector was created for Compiere in cooperation with Estuate, their development partner, using the Force.com platform. The Compiere ERP Connector for Salesforce CRM is immediately available to companies worldwide at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.
Compiere ERP provides a modern, adaptable, low-cost ERP solution – available in the cloud – designed to complement or replace legacy ERP applications. It is a complete end-to-end business application that automates processes from accounting, to purchasing, order fulfillment, manufacturing, and warehousing. The Compiere ERP Connector automatically updates accounts, customer orders and invoices between Compiere ERP and Salesforce CRM. The solution eliminates manual processes to accelerate order fulfillment, improve operational efficiency and improve sales execution, while enabling complete traceability of all synchronization efforts.
“The market is looking for a broader set of best-of-breed solutions that are well integrated,” said Don Klaiss, Compiere president and CEO. “Compiere, by offering its solutions on the salesforce.com’s AppExchange, is delivering on this market need, and expects a high level of interest from both our current and future customers.”
“Compiere’s announcement is a signal that customers are asking to run all their business processes in the cloud,” said Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer at salesforce.com. “Compiere’s ERP solution will deliver value to customers across a number of industries. Used together, Salesforce CRM and Compiere ERP will help companies quickly maximize sales and improve operations.”
About the Force.com Platform and AppExchange
Force.com is the only proven enterprise platform for building and running business applications in the cloud. The Force.com platform powers the Salesforce CRM applications, more than 800 ISV partner applications, and more than 110,000 custom applications used by salesforce.com’s 59,300 customers such as Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE and Sprint Nextel.
Applications built on the Force.com platform can be easily distributed to the entire cloud computing community through the Force.com AppExchange marketplace at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.
About Compiere, Inc.
Compiere is the world’s leading provider of open source and cloud-based ERP business solutions. Founded in 1999, the company’s award-winning software has been downloaded over 1.7 million times and is deployed worldwide by companies of all sizes. Powered by a revolutionary model-based platform, the company offers comprehensive, modern, highly-adaptable and low cost ERP solutions and support services to its customers and global network of partners operating in more than 40 countries. Compiere ERP solutions are available on-premise or on the Cloud. Compiere is privately held and headquartered in Redwood Shores, CA. For more information, please visit www.compiere.com.
DPR Group, Inc.
Dayna Guzik, 1-919-678-9200
dguzik@dprgroup.com
OpenSpan Rapidly Integrates SaaS
OpenSpan, Inc., a leader in business user productivity software, today announced the availability of the OpenSpan Platform on salesforce.com’s AppExchange. OpenSpan enables Salesforce CRM customers to automate processes that span both cloud computing applications from salesforce.com and on-premise enterprise applications. This means customers can automate workflows between Salesforce CRM and other enterprise applications such as email, billing, provisioning and dispatch. A virtual test drive of OpenSpan is immediately available on the AppExchange at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange as well as on the Amazon EC2 Cloud, accessible via the OpenSpan Web site www.openspan.com/salesforce.
OpenSpan’s virtual test drive guides users through the process of integrating and automating existing applications with Salesforce CRM. Organizations can see the customer service and employee productivity benefits before actually implementing OpenSpan. Among the OpenSpan capabilities highlighted are:
* Automating workflows within Salesforce CRM such as automating login procedures or by automatically delivering high value customer alerts and real-time up-sell or cross-sell offers.
* Automating workflows between Salesforce CRM and other applications including CTI or soft phone applications, email and chat, knowledge management, billing, provisioning, dispatch and other applications.
* Improving compliance adherence by adding automatic auditing and reporting of compliance violations.
* Enhancing user interfaces by accessing key customer information stored in other applications directly from the Salesforce CRM user interface.
* Improving business processes by tracking and reporting user activity within salesforce.com to business intelligence (BI), business activity monitoring (BAM) or other analytical tools.
“As customers deploy Salesforce CRM to optimize and automate business processes, OpenSpan helps businesses increase productivity and better leverage existing IT investments through point and click integration with a wide variety of applications,” said Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer, salesforce.com.
“OpenSpan customers report annual savings of $1 million for every 1,000 user desktops deployed with OpenSpan,” said Eric Musser, CEO, OpenSpan. “We’re pleased to join the AppExchange and to help salesforce.com customers improve user productivity and reduce the cost of ownership by simplifying integration and automation with legacy applications.”
About the Force.com Platform and AppExchange
Force.com is the only proven enterprise platform for building and running business applications in the cloud. The Force.com platform powers the Salesforce CRM applications, more than 800 ISV partner applications like those from CODA and Fujitsu, and more than 110,000 custom applications used by salesforce.com’s 59,300 customers such as Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE and Sprint Nextel.
Applications built on the Force.com platform can be easily distributed to the entire cloud computing community through the AppExchange marketplace at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.
About OpenSpan, Inc.
Global 2000 enterprises leverage the OpenSpan Platform to integrate applications, service-enable legacy systems, automate business processes, extend functionality and build new composite applications in order to realize immediate value on their IT investments. OpenSpan is now deployed on more than 100,000 enterprise desktops, helping customers accelerate service-oriented architecture (SOA) projects and increase enterprise desktop productivity. The OpenSpan Platform will support more than 1 billion customer support calls in 2009, saving organizations more than $100 million. A venture-backed company, OpenSpan is headquartered in Alpharetta, GA. More information about OpenSpan is located online at www.openspan.com.
Contacts
OpenSpan, Inc.
Joe McGonnell, 678-527-5400
jmcgonnell@openspan.com
or
Schwartz Communications
Keith Giannini/Chris Poisson
781-684-0770
openspan@schwartz-pr.com
entire business in the cloud
Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced that The Sant Corporation, the leader in proposal and sales document automation software, runs its entire business in the cloud with Salesforce CRM http://www.salesforce.com/crm). The company deployed the Service Cloud http://www.salesforce.com/crm/customer-service-support/) and the Sales Cloud http://www.salesforce.com/crm/sales-force-automation/) from salesforce.com and achieved 83% revenue growth and now resolves customer support issues 60% faster.
“We were using spreadsheets and a contact management application to run sales. As a growing company, this antiquated approach prevented us from taking the company to the next level. We needed a completely new approach to conducting business,” said Brian Vass, vice president of marketing at The Sant Corporation. “When we explored various solutions in the market, we were impressed by the number of companies talking about their success with Salesforce CRM. No other vendor could illustrate they had so many happy customers.”
Sant deployed the Service Cloud and Sales Cloud across customer support and sales, and leveraged Force.com to quickly and easily create applications to automate other areas of the business including the professional services organization and customer feedback. The cloud computing solutions completely transformed how the company operates, and staff across the entire company — including company executives — are all enjoying the benefits of instant access to real-time customer information.
Previously, Sant’s Technical Support team was using spreadsheets to log and track customer support issues. This manual process prevented Sant from providing its customers with the level of support they expected. Today, Sant’s customers report issues via phone, email, and web-to-case forms on the company’s website. All of these interactions are logged and tracked in the Service Cloud and the company has real-time insight into case volume, status, resolution time, agent workload, and much more. In fact, since deploying the Service Cloud, Sant is now resolving customer support issues 60% faster.
Sant has also automated its customer feedback process with the Service Cloud. Customers automatically receive survey invitations when Sant closes a support case, complete a professional services engagement, or launch a new version of Sant’s software application. Feedback from these surveys is rolled-up to dashboards that are monitored by department managers and executives daily. Sant strives to provide exceptional products and services to its customers, and this continuous feedback loop is critical in helping the company measure the effectiveness in accomplishing this goal. All of the work is done using a custom object, workflow rules, email triggers, dashboards, and ClickTools, an application available on the Force.com AppExchange.
The Sales Cloud enables Sant to capture leads from the company’s web site, conduct targeted outreach, and track conversion rates and revenue by individual campaign. Rich reporting and dashboards provide unprecedented insight into success metrics so the marketing team can continually optimize their efforts. In addition, the Sales Cloud reinforces Sant’s sales process, supports forecasting and planning, and gives staff and management alike a constant read on the pipeline.
“Salesforce CRM has helped us improve our business in every way, and it’s translating into greater profitability,” added Vass. “We’ve reaped all these benefits of cloud computing without the hassle of deploying and maintaining software. We’ve added ourselves to the long list of happy salesforce.com customers.”
In addition, Sant has automated its professional services organization with the Sales Cloud. Sant’s professional services organization provides consulting and training to support customers’ implementations. Every professional services engagement is tracked and managed in the Sales Cloud - from initial sale to final delivery. Engagements are associated with the Account record, providing all employees with visibility into the customer’s service history. Prior to automating this process in the Sales Cloud, all professional services engagements were managed using emails and spreadsheets. This was an inefficient process and didn’t provide employees with visibility into the customer’s service history. The automation is comprised of a series of custom objects, workflow rules, email triggers, and dashboards that were created by Sant.
For more information on cloud computing, visit www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing.
The Sant Corporation is one of the 59,300 companies of all sizes, industries and geographies that comprised the salesforce.com customer base as of April 30, 2009. Revenue and subscribers will be recognized as the service is delivered.
About The Sant Corporation
The Sant Corporation is a provider of proven software and expertise that improves sales effectiveness. We help companies who provide value-based solutions win more business by accelerating the production of persuasive proposals, RFP responses, presentations, and related documents. Sant’s applications integrate with Salesforce.com and are available in the AppExchange.
Sant is a privately held corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, and has operations in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Africa. For more information, please visit www.santcorp.com.
About salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company. The company’s portfolio of Salesforce CRM applications, available athttp://www.salesforce.com/crm/, has revolutionized the ways that companies collaborate and communicate with their customers across sales, marketing and service. The company’s Force.com Platform http://www.salesforce.com/platform/) enables customers, partners and developers to quickly build powerful business to run every part of the enterprise in the cloud. Based on salesforce.com’s http://salesforce.com) real-time, multi-tenant architecture, Salesforce CRM and Force.com offer the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing.
As of April 30, 2009, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 59,300 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM”. For more information please visithttp://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE
Advent Software Deploys Cloud Computing From Salesforce
Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced that Advent Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADVS), a leading provider of software and services for the global investment management industry, has deployed Salesforce CRM and the Force.com platform throughout the company. Hundreds of Advent’s sales, marketing, professional services, customer support, IT, finance, and executive management employees are using salesforce.com globally.
“We were able to deploy the cloud computing platform and applications from salesforce.com throughout our enterprise more quickly and at less cost than on-premise alternatives,” said Belinda Rodman, Chief Information Officer, Advent Software. “Additionally, with Salesforce CRM and Force.com we have proven cloud computing solutions that delivered rapid time to value and have been widely adopted by our employees.”
Advent uses Salesforce CRM as a central data repository to help sales and customer service better understand customers. Its high adoption rate among users ensures that customer data is consistent and reliable. Fast access to key business metrics and increased visibility across the entire company drive better business oversight and decision-making. Advent also benefits from custom forecasts and dashboards that provide real time views of key opportunity and deal metrics, and make it easy to compare historical data.
In addition to Salesforce CRM, Advent is developing project management and other custom applications on the Force.com platform. Force.com provides a real-time cloud computing infrastructure for Advent, ensuring that its customizations to Salesforce CRM and Force.com are delivered immediately worldwide. Advent’s IT team leverages multiple Force.com sandbox environments for developing and testing new customizations and applications before deploying them. Additionally, salesforce.com’s cloud computing model delivers a continuous pace of new features and functionality without requiring Advent to manually perform the upgrades.
“We needed something to support our business architecture and processes going forward,” said Rodman. “We’ve been able to achieve an enterprise standard with the Force.com platform that we can build our business around.”
Advent Software is one of the 59,300 companies of all sizes, industries and geographies that comprised the salesforce.com customer base as of April 30, 2009. Revenue and subscribers will be recognized as the service is delivered.
About Advent
Advent Software, Inc., a global firm, has provided trusted solutions to the world’s financial professionals since 1983. Today firms in 60 countries rely on Advent technology to run their mission-critical operations. Advent’s quality software, data, services and tools enable financial professionals to improve service and communication to their clients, allowing them to grow their business while controlling costs. Advent is the only financial services software company to be awarded the Service Capability and Performance certification for being a world-class support and services organization. For more information on Advent products visit http://www.advent.com/about/resources/demos/pr.
About salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company. The company’s portfolio of Salesforce CRM applications, available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the ways that companies collaborate and communicate with their customers across sales, marketing and service. The company’s Force.com platform (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/) enables customers, partners and developers to quickly build powerful business applications to run every part of the enterprise in the cloud. Based on salesforce.com’s real-time, multi-tenant architecture, Salesforce CRM and Force.com offer the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing.
As of April 30, 2009, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 59,300 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM”. For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
