Client Success Snapshot
Client Profile:
- Overview: A major manufacturer of food packaging materials in the U.S.
- Industry: Manufacturing (Food Packaging Materials)
- Team Size: 501-1,000
- Annual Revenue: N/A
- Headquarters: Oak Brook, IL
- Markets: North America
The Challenge
After a period of exponential growth, a major manufacturer of food packaging materials found itself struggling to manage its sales funnel with its usual system of spreadsheets and folders. The team experienced missed sales opportunities, confusion, and clerical errors; sales representatives were often so focused on completing inefficient day-to-day processes that they had little time left over to explore new opportunities and strategies.
The client needed a funnel management tool that would allow its sales team to review and report on opportunities flowing through its fast-growing sales pipeline.
Gerent’s Approach
Gerent presented a solution: quick-starting Sales Cloud, a cutting-edge CRM platform that centralizes consumer information, logs outreach efforts, and automates manual tasks to give sales representatives more time for strategy development. Gerent’s solution architects also built in room to grow, in case the client decided to expand its Salesforce suite beyond Sales Cloud in the future.
Key Outcomes
Post-implementation, the manufacturer gained a minimally viable — and scalable — CRM solution that could support the company’s efforts to grow revenue in new and existing markets.
Empowered by Salesforce’s cutting-edge sales tools, the team now spends less time on administration and more on pursuing lucrative opportunities. The platform also gives sales leaders real-time visibility into ongoing efforts and achievements; every sales professional has access to a shared source of real-time truth. The Sales Cloud Quick Start proved to be exactly what the manufacturer needed to fix its leaky sales funnel and prepare for future growth.
Client Success Story
Spreadsheets are highly effective — but only up to a point. Gerent’s client, a major manufacturer of food packaging materials, realized these limitations the hard way after attempting to manage its fast-expanding sales pipeline exclusively through Microsoft Excel.
At first, the team’s reliance on spreadsheets didn’t pose a serious problem; the business was small enough to organize its incoming business into folders and spreadsheets. However, after the manufacturer underwent a period of exponential growth, the organization’s leaders realized that its cobbled-together network of spreadsheets simply would not be workable for much longer.
Important details were already slipping through the proverbial cracks. The team experienced missed sales opportunities, confusion, and clerical errors. Naturally, those dealing with the disorganization had less time to proactively explore new sales opportunities or develop top-notch outreach strategies.
Simply put, the client needed a funnel management tool that would allow them to review and report on opportunities flowing through their fast-growing sales pipeline. However, the manufacturer didn’t quite know how to meet the challenge — so, its leaders turned to Salesforce.
After reviewing the case, the manufacturer’s designated Salesforce Account Executive (AE) suggested its team connect with Gerent, a veteran transformation partner with deep expertise implementing Salesforce within the manufacturing industry.
“The AE recommended us because they knew we could address the client’s immediate needs and provide the strategic partnership they needed to develop a long-term Salesforce transformation strategy,” David Guido, Gerent’s sales lead for the account, explained in an interview.
With Sales Cloud, Gerent provides operational support and room to grow
After holding several exploratory meetings with the manufacturer’s leadership, Gerent presented a solution: implementing Sales Cloud via a two-week Quick Start.
Per Salesforce, Sales Cloud is a “cloud-based application designed to help your salespeople sell smarter and faster by centralizing customer information, logging their interactions with your company, and automating many of the tasks salespeople do every day.”
Before launching into the implementation process, Gerent’s team took the time to learn everything they could about the manufacturer’s current process and requirements. Ultimately, the solution architects found that Sales Cloud’s out-of-the-box configuration was all but ideal for our client’s needs; while our solution architects tweaked some features to more closely support the manufacturer’s pre-existing processes, the amount of tailoring our team needed to do was minimal.
Empowered by Salesforce’s cutting-edge sales tools, the team can now spend less time on administration and more pursuing lucrative opportunities. The platform also gives sales leaders real-time visibility into their teams’ ongoing efforts and achievements — a functionality which makes developing high-potential strategies and delivering accurate reports and projections easy.
That said, Gerent didn’t focus exclusively on the client’s immediate needs; our solution architects also built in room to grow, in case the client decides to expand its Salesforce suite beyond Sales Cloud in the future.
Lastly, Gerent delivered end-user training services to ensure every member of the manufacturer’s 10-person sales team understood how to use the new software to its fullest potential.
The results: increased efficiency and a sturdy Salesforce foundation
Post-implementation, the manufacturer gained a minimally viable — and scalable — CRM solution that can and will support the company’s efforts to grow revenue in new and existing markets.
By adopting Sales Cloud, our client was able to end its reliance on Excel for tracking sales opportunities. Naturally, this transition led to massive efficiency gains and more effective day-to-day sales operations. Team members no longer needed to spend their valuable time chasing down information or reorganizing haphazard data; in fact, they found themselves with more time to pursue new opportunities and outreach strategies.
Sales Cloud also provided a single, shared source of real-time truth. Now that every sales professional has access to the same up-to-date information stores, the team can rest assured that its members are always working with up-to-date intelligence and know exactly what has been done on each client’s account. Lastly, Gerent’s solution architects integrated Sales Cloud with Outlook to enable easy activity tracking and customer communication.
The Sales Cloud Quick Start proved to be exactly what the manufacturer needed to fix its leaky sales funnel and prepare for future growth. That said, Sales Cloud won’t mark the end of the company’s transformation — even before Sales Cloud went live, representatives from the manufacturer had requested an additional meeting to discuss potential next steps for further Salesforce expansion.
At Gerent, we look forward to helping our clients pursue their ideal future state. To find out how we can support you, please set up a personalized consultation today!
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