Salesforce and the AppExchange Fuel Team Selling Success at Cognos

Challenge

• Cognos, a leader in business intelligence (BI) and performance planning software for the enterprise, had outgrown its custom-built forecasting application
• The company needed to provide its 1,300 sales, presales and professional services teams with sophisticated account, opportunity, contact and lead management solutions to facilitate its team selling methodology
• An outdated Onyx CRM system, used as a CRM in only a few locations, failed to meet the company's multi-language support needs and advanced forecasting requirements because it wasn't easy to upgrade an application that had been customized beyond recognition

Solution

• To identify a solution that would work best with all users, Cognos performed a comprehensive needs analysis, surveying its entire worldwide community
• Cognos evaluated Salesforce SFA, Onyx, and Siebel CRM OnDemand, choosing Salesforce for its performance and market leadership position, among other things
• With the help of salesforce.com's Professional Services, Cognos began deploying Salesforce to users on a global basis in just four months
• Using the Force.com API, Cognos extracts Salesforce information into its BI data warehouse to provide integration with Oracle Financials information and perform advanced reporting and analysis
• Lead routing and workflow tasks streamline the sales process, and opportunity management tracks qualified sales opportunities
• Cognos has downloaded and implemented Eloqua Conversion Suite, an application from the AppExchange directory, to easily execute and automate marketing campaigns from within Salesforce
• Because security was a primary concern, Cognos chose to augment Salesforce's data security features with secure hardware tokens to create a failsafe login authentication process
• Platinum Support provides Cognos with 24/7 support for all users

Results

• By enabling knowledge sharing among sales, presales, and services teams, Salesforce make possible a team-selling approach to Cognos' customer success program
• Cognos enjoys end-to-end visibility, tracking leads through to closed opportunities
• User friendliness spurs team member adoption, dramatically improving account forecasting accuracy
• Salesforce PRM, rolled out to over 150 partners, supports continued channel growth—a vital component of the company's business strategy