CRM - October 2008 - (Page SF5)

Sponsored Content October 2008 5 SYNCHRONIZING SALESFORCE DATA Keeping Salesforce CRM data synchronized with the rest of the company’s business systems can be a complex process. Along with managing a myriad of data, Salesforce administrators typically must deal with multiple data formats and structures and different system interfaces, while meeting the varying data needs of many different groups. It’s important that CRM data is both consistent and timely across many applications and systems. As CRM data drives the organization, getting new order data to accounting or manufacturing is critical to a smooth operation. Keeping account data, such as names, addresses and key contacts in Salesforce synchronized with a corporate master database is important to assure sales reps have the latest and most accurate information at their fingertips. Equally important, external financial, business, and market data need to be imported and kept up to date to improve the overall performance of the sales team. Informatica On Demand Data Loader Service provides bidirectional synchronization between Salesforce accounts, contacts, opportunities, and leads, as well as custom fields, and back office databases and files through a simple, “set it and forget it” Web-based environment. The Data Loader Service syncs Salesforce CRM data between databases and file systems, to do such things as import new sales leads or update shipping records, assuring that critical business information is consistent, accurate, and timely to guarantee business continuity. The Data Loader Service is easy to deploy, configure, and maintain. There is no software or hardware to install or support, and the intuitive, drag-and-drop, Web-based interface and integration wizard are easy to set up. Out-of-the-box database connectivity eliminates the need for hand coding to access or manipulate dataset records. Integration processes can be run nightly, hourly, or down to the minute with the built-in scheduler. See Data Synchronization case study sidebar. BEFORE YOU MOVE IT—CLEAN IT UP Next to data integration, data quality is typically the biggest problem area for Salesforce administrators. While most organizations care about the quality of their data, CRM systems have been an inherent weak link in overall data quality partially due to manual data entry, the constant changing of data, and the wide variety of data import sources, formats, and content. Duplicate leads, accounts, and contacts waste valuable marketing and sales cycles as sales reps may post activity data (calls, emails, etc) to independent duplicate records. With data in two or more places, it’s easy to end up with inconsistent or conflicting data leading to costly mistakes or embarrassing errors. Incomplete records, for example, a record with an email address and phone number but no mailing address, become problematic when a lead becomes a sale and the critical shipping or billing address is missing when the record is replicated to the accounting system. Inconsistent data, such as an improperly formatted part number, produce similar problems when later transferred to an ERP system for processing, further delaying order processing. Data Quality is a major problem that often starts with the CRM system and can lead to poor user adoption. And quality issues don’t just impact the CRM system. Incomplete or inaccurate data can proliferate like a virus throughout the enterprise once systems are integrated. Informatica has also developed an ondemand solution for data quality assurance. The Informatica On Demand Data Quality Assessment Service for Salesforce minimizes the risk and costs of populating ERP, accounting, and other business applications with inaccurate or duplicate data. The Data Quality Assessment Service puts Salesforce administrators and business analysts in control of data quality processes. An informative and easy-to-use dashboard presents a complete picture of overall data quality and an automated scheduler enables trend reporting to highlight problems as they occur so as to be corrected quickly. Problem records are easy to identify, extract, cleanse and upload back into the system. With no hardware or infrastructure to install, organizations can focus on resolving data quality issues and not on system maintenance. DATA SYNCHRONIZATION CASE STUDY A large pharmaceutical firm wanted to drive down IT costs by moving its CRM system to a SaaS environment. Highly sensitive and important medical data needed to be migrated from a custom-built J2EE application to Salesforce. The firm searched for a solution that would allow a phased integration, supported by known technology now and Web services when they were ready. The company chose a Data Integration solution from Informatica to migrate the highly customized and hard-to-maintain legacy CRM data to Salesforce. Master data was then synchronized across Salesforce. The project was completed on time and on budget, providing an integration platform for sensitive medical, patient, and employee data that can be used across applications as well as data warehouse analytics.

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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