CRM - October 2008 - (Page SF3)

Sponsored Content October 2008 3 Salesforce Integration – It’s not just for IT any longer The CRM system contains one of the most important databases in any enterprise. But to effectively deliver that information when and where it’s needed, the CRM system must integrate with back-office systems and other applications. This requires something more sophisticated than “swivelchair” integration where someone swivels back and forth from terminal to terminal to manually capture and enter information between systems. In the past, CRM systems were onpremise and owned and managed by the IT organization. Sales and Marketing users historically depended on IT to perform integration or make changes, writing custom code and/or leveraging their EAI or ETL enterprise integration platforms. This demanded technical skill sets well beyond the range of line-of-business users. Integration was hard, it was complicated and, frustrating for Sales and Marketing users, and it was time-consuming, placing their CRM projects in a perpetual IT queue. Software as a Service (SaaS), and Salesforce, came along and empowered business users. These truly user-friendly systems enabled Sales and Marketing to set up, implement, operate, and administer their CRM systems with minimal help from IT. As business users began to scale up their CRM systems, however, the need to integrate with back-office systems and other applications soon surfaced— just as it had with traditional premise-based CRM systems. While Salesforce Administrators could manage their CRM systems, they lacked the proper tools needed for integration. They had to hire an outside consultant to do the work, or it was back to the IT queue. NOW INTEGRATION IS ON DEMAND DATA LOADER CASE STUDY An international technical services company wanted to boost the productivity of its remote offices and build deeper customer relationships through Salesforce. The company needed to maintain the existing level of integration between a customer quote application and SalesLogix, while at the same time migrating to Salesforce—and they needed to complete the migration within a two-day window! The firm chose Informatica On Demand Data Loader Service due to its superior database access and automation features. Data Loader also removed the resource requirement for internal data synchronization with Salesforce. Following a six-week analysis and integration rollout, the company moved from SalesLogix to Salesforce within 48 hours. Data Loader enabled direct database access to synchronize account and contact data from SQL Server into Salesforce in a “set and forget” production environment. Informatica has changed all of that. Leveraging 15 years of experience as the leading independent data integration market leader Informatica has developed the industry’s first true SaaS integration offering that is extremely easy to use and cost-effective. Salesforce integration – it’s not just for IT any longer. Informatica addresses the three critical areas of Salesforce integration: importing data into Salesforce, extracting data from Salesforce, and bi-directionally synchronizing Salesforce data. And as you see later, also the fourth critical area, data quality. IMPORTING DATA INTO SALESFORCE Setting up a Salesforce CRM system is relatively quick and straightforward. But getting all the existing account, contact, and product information into the system may not be as easy. Pulling data from a legacy The Informatica On Demand Data Loader Service provides a simple, yet powerful, visual mapping tool to synchronize Salesforce data with back office databases and applications

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - October 2008

CRM - October 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality�Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Sprinting Toward Disaster? SAP�Retains Market-Share Lead in�CRM A�Week of Strong Customer�Service CRM�on Twitter Build a Good Event and They Will Come Required Reading There's No Place Like Home The New Breed of CRM�Consultant The Price is Right...You Hope How Much Marketing is Too�Much? The�Sweet Smell of High-Quality�Service The Next Act! For An Acquisition Some Stories Never Get Old CRM�Eases the Pressure For WIKA�Instruments Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - October 2008

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