ABOUT THE VENDOR

PeopleSoft is a provider of collaborative enterprise software. PeopleSoft pure Internet software aims to enable organizations to reduce costs and increase productivity through collaboration with their customers, suppliers, and employees. PeopleSoft's integrated applications include Customer Relationship Management, Enterprise Service Automation, Supply Chain Management, Human Resources Management, Financial Management, and Enterprise Performance Management. More than 4,700 organizations in 107 countries run on PeopleSoft software.

ABOUT THE CLIENT

NSI Software is a developer of data replication technologies and services. NSI Software products, including Double-Take, GeoCluster, and Balance, enable companies to recover from disasters and continue to provide business-critical information for demanding customer environments. Established in 1991, NSI has strategic technical and marketing relationships with companies including Microsoft, IBM, Dell, HP, Compaq and many others.

ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY

PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management connects people -- customers, suppliers, partners and employees -- to business processes on-line and in real time. Companies can integrate PeopleSoft 8 CRM with financial, supply chain, and human capital management systems. Companies gain closed-loop management of all sales activities, marketing programs, and support and service

functions. A company's remote and traveling staff have access to the information the need -- even when they're disconnected. In addition, PeopleSoft has embedded analytics to provide enterprise-wide information about customer behavior, business operations, and profitability so managers can understand their customers, anticipate their needs, and influence their decisions. Because PeopleSoft 8 CRM is built on a pure Internet architecture, there is no code on the client.

NSI had already been running a partially implemented CRM system called Remedy to manage its support center. The company wanted to take advantage of some of the other features of CRM -- to integrate the rest of its departments, share the same sets of information, include automatic escalation and notification. SearchCRM spoke with Mr. Kelly Keller, CRM manager, about the project.

-------------------------------------------
SearchCRM: How did you choose PeopleSoft?
Keller: We realized that we had a history with the Remedy product, so we wanted to make sure that we weren't biased to that product. So what we did was hire an outside firm called Apex IT to come in and analyze our business model. From that, they came back with recommendations of five vendors we should look at. PeopleSoft was among them.

SearchCRM: What were you looking for in a vendor?
Keller: Some of it was the standard stuff -- we obviously wanted a business model that was going to fit our business today and in the future. We wanted to make sure that it was something we could customize. We're a technology company, so we also wanted something that was a little bit cutting edge. But we really wanted a best-in-breed product -- something that would bring best business practices to our company.

We're experiencing rapid growth, so it was important to select an application that could scale as we grow. We didn't want a solution that we'd have to replace in a year or two. So we were looking for a product where maybe we weren't using every single feature today, but we'd be using them maybe next year or the year after.

SearchCRM: What was the most challenging aspect of the evaluation?
Keller: The most challenging thing was done ahead of time, and that was understanding our business. As we looked, our business was still evolving. We had to cut it off somewhere and say, okay, here are the features we'll be implementing today, with the understanding that we'll be implementing additional features later.

SearchCRM: Was it useful to have an outside company coordinate the vendor evaluation?
Keller: The biggest strength they were able to provide was to tell us what we needed to ask and what we needed to look at. Then they helped us set up the meetings and the reviews, and played the arbitrator to make sure the companies weren't presenting features that weren't really there. They gave us some background to know if what was being pitched to us was really true.

SearchCRM: How did the implementation go?
Keller: It went pretty well. Apex IT recommended implementers to assist us with the implementation. We realized up front that because of the speed we wanted to implement and the sheer quantity of things that we wanted to do with the product, our staffing resources just wouldn't meet the requirements.

We ended up selecting a partner that was authorized PeopleSoft. They were able to bring in best business practices as well as experience with software vendors so they could use some of the similarities they'd seen in the past. For example, how you handle your sales may be similar, as well as change management of your software and tracking the different versions.

SearchCRM: How do you use the CRM solution in your day-to-day operations?
Keller: We have been continually evolving the product, and it's in almost every aspect of our business. In our sales, support, and marketing, we base most decisions off of the CRM system. But it's also assisting us in areas like product management -- we just used it to make decisions on which products we'll be supporting in the future. We're using it for modeling our customer base for our quality and support groups.

SearchCRM: What kind of training did you do?
Keller: Apex IT was able to bring additional resources on board to help us train our staff on the original implementation. Before walking off the project, they made sure that the knowledge of using the product was transferred to both the support staff and the end user base.

We had a previous product, Remedy, in our support arena. So they basically they just had to learn a different product that did the same thing. Other groups like sales and marketing had to learn a completely different thing.

We had a phased implementation rollout. We did marketing and sales first, then we trained support. We took the entire sales staff to our training facilities in Indiana and trained them all at one time. Our support group is already based here in Indiana.

For new employees, we standardized on Webex as a Web-based training tool. It's a site you can visit and present applications, screens, whatever materials you have through the Web.

SearchCRM: Does the CRM solution help you better serve your customers?
Keller: That's an absolute yes. We collect customers that are interested in our products and pass them into our system, where it's automatically handled in a much more timely manner than it used to be. We follow up with leads in a maximum time of 24 hours. With the manual system we had it used to be weeks before we'd follow up. And in many cases, we follow up within minutes. The system is automated, and it notifies the appropriate people that a new lead has been entered into the system.

SearchCRM: Can you give me an example of how you're achieving ROI?
Keller: I think we saw ROI about 6 to 9 months out from our go-live dates.

Recently the director of marketing communications met with an event person who was trying to sell him on yet another large trade show. In the past, he'd never had the power to actually give any raw data in terms of how well we'd done. This time, the director was able to go back and let this person know why he wasn't going to throw thousands of dollars at this event again. He could measure the number of leads, how many of those leads converted to opportunities, how many of those opportunities were closed into business. He could also measure the cost per lead and total revenue, and match that to his investment in the event.

That story has been repeated across all our departments. That level of detail has been available for our marketing group, support group, sales group, product management--every department has gained some advantages.

There have been other things as well -- we've seen huge amounts of increased sales and shorter sales cycles.

SearchCRM: Do you have any advice for companies considering a similar project?
Keller: Get management approval. I know it's hard, but you absolutely have to, and I think if we didn't we wouldn't have been successful.

I would also recommend interviewing the end users of the system and documenting their business processes down to as detailed of a level as you can. The more we documented up front, the smoother the implementation of the product went.

Linda Formichelli's writing has appeared in Woman's Day, Wired, Writer's Digest, Family Circle, Psychology Today. Contact her at linda-eric@lserv.com, or check out her Web site http://www.twowriters.net

Disclaimer: Our Tips Exchange is a forum for you to share technical advice and expertise with your peers and to learn from other enterprise IT professionals. TechTarget provides the infrastructure to facilitate this sharing of information. However, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or validity of the material submitted. You agree that your use of the Ask The Expert services and your reliance on any questions, answers, information or other materials received through this Web site is at your own risk.