crm wiz kids: echosign e-signature, zuora, xactly, right90, manticore, + more

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Beagle Research Group, LLC 264 Greenbrook Drive Stoughton, MA 02072 781-297-0066 [email protected] www.BeagleResearch.com May 2009 Front Office Innovation 2009 WizKids Report

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Beagle Research Group, LLC264 Greenbrook DriveStoughton, MA [email protected] www.BeagleResearch.com

May 2009

Front Office Innovation2009 WizKids Report

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Table of Contents

About Beagle ResearchSince 2004 Beagle Research has been providing focused market research to our clients, helping numerous emerging companies to gain traction in the market. Whether the client is an emerging company or an established company with an emerging idea, our insights and hands on approach give them the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about their strategies and directions.

On a daily basis a growing group of senior level analysts and consultants helps clients to make informed decisions to effectively compete and succeed in the market. Our clients depend on us to help them sort through issues, develop strategies and lower the risks associated with

Zuora, Inc. .............................................5Xactly Corporation ............................7Unisfair .............................................. .10TimeTrade Systems ....................... .13Right90 .............................................. .16Manticore Technology .................. .19EchoSign ........................................... .22

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WizKids 2009We believe that the front office software market is transitioning from an era of customer centricity to one of operational excellence and this year’s WizKids award winners in various ways reflect this. We also believe the transition to operational excellence is a normal part of any growing market — especially during a recession. When we boil down operational excellence to practical business matters the striking characteristic shared by this year’s winners is this: Making companies easier to do business with. Early success in any market relies on customer contact — enveloping the customer with service while engineering figures out ways to simplify use, reduce overall complexity and lower costs. Inevitably, companies become bloated in their high-touch customer contact phases and the bureaucracies created become barriers to effective customers interactions. When the pendulum reverses course, demand is high for products and services that reduce labor and improve accessibility so that margins will more or less survive overall prices remain flat or, more likely, decrease. In other words, when products begin to commoditize, everything that touches the product will need trimming as well. This is not simply the characteristic of a recession — though these times can add greater urgency to the trimming process. Accentuating operational excellence is a normal phase in a company’s life cycle and the cycle will renew with the invention of new products and categories.This year’s WizKids all exemplify the importance of operational excellence.

ZuoraPrior to Zuora and a few other companies, on-demand companies used billing systems originally intended for conventional product sales. But on-demand vendors have a host of billing needs that product companies do not. Customers are free to re-configure their services frequently and many do. Accommodating these changes can be a massive undertaking and, due to the nature of on-demand computing in which users can simply quit, every customer touch has to be accurate. Zuora has taken much of the effort out of producing accurate bills (monthly, quarterly or other periods) for on-demand companies thereby simplifying operations. Zuora represents the leading edge of a new category that we call Internet Infrastructure because it supplies the unique billing and payments needs of on-demand companies and their customers. By doing this Zuora has helped to make any of its client companies easier to do business with.

XactlyLike Right90, Xactly has a solution that makes a company easier for its employees to work with. Compensation management had been a backwater application area prior to on-demand computing because few companies could afford to purchase systems. As a result, the bulk of sales departments tracked commissions in labor-intensive spreadsheets. Xactly and several other companies changed that but Xactly appears to have taken the idea furthest. A database, document management and analytics enable managers to build and distribute sales plans, review and accurately reward performance and customize plans to reflect the realities of markets and personnel. With Xactly, companies have a better way to address the needs of one of their most important constituencies — sales people.

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UnisfairCompanies face pressures to be more cost effective, for example, in generating leads and better managing travel expenses. And increasingly, companies need to manage their carbon footprints. Unisfair has developed a solution that contributes solutions to all of these needs. On-demand trade show management is a relatively new segment and Unisfair provides a graphic example of how companies can reach their target audiences with trade show content while developing qualified leads at a fraction of the cost usually associated with shows. Virtual shows may not be ready to replace conventional live meetings in all cases but we believe that they will be an important part of any company’s green strategy now and in the future. Companies adopting virtual trade show strategies, at least in part, will discover they can hold more events on smaller budgets and greatly reduce the expense of travel for themselves and their customers. In the process they will be making their companies easier to do business with.

TimeTradeDelivering services often requires more than a simple appointment between a provider and a customer. In addition to skilled personnel, services require rooms, equipment and possibly one or more assistants. All must be scheduled together if an appointment is to work out. Walk-in service may work in many cases but long wait times can drive away business. Alternatively, over staffing to accommodate possible walk-ins can be ruinously expensive. TimeTrade has developed sophisticated self-service appointment scheduling that can help vendors better manage their assets and customers manage their time. Appointment scheduling can help any business become easier to do business with simply by smoothing out demand and making it more predictable thus benefitting both customer and vendor.

Right90Operational excellence or making a company easier to work with does not only extend to the customer. Improving internal business processes is frequently prized but the idea has always had a back office orientation. Right90 provides a good example of improving operations in the front office. Forecasting business is far from an exact science but it can have profound consequences especially in manufacturing. Too often the sales forecast acts as a surrogate for a true business forecast with dreadful results for manufacturers. Right90’s approach to business forecasting combines technology (database and analytics) plus a good dose of common sense. The result is better forecasting and smoother operations that benefit companies and their customers.

Manticore TechnologyOn-demand marketing automation and lead nurturing have been available from multiple vendors — and some have previously won WizKids awards — but Manticore has played a significant role in making this software as a service accessible to even small companies. Moreover, as the case study shows, Intellitactics used Manticore in a creative approach to re-engaging with prospects that had previously made the dreaded “no-decision” decision. Manticore made it easy for customers to re-engage and thus easy for them to work with Intellitactics.

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EchoSignThe contract life cycle had not been explored rigorously for automation purposes until EchoSign did that work and discovered important ways to improve turnaround time and greatly reduce the cost of accessing the documents during the lifetime of the agreements. EchoSign’s timing has been exceptional and the company has found a home with vendors of on-demand products and services. On-demand solutions can be inexpensive which is great for customers but conversely vendors must have many contracts in force at any time to be profitable. Consequently, the high volumes of agreements and relatively low dollar values mean vendors have to rely on automation to address the contract life cycle. EchoSign might still face some acceptance issues typical of almost any on-demand service but the direction of the market seems clear.

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Zuora, Inc.1400 Bridge Parkway, Suite 201Redwood City, CA 94065 www.Zuora.com

What they doZuora was founded in 2008 by SaaS industry pioneers who helped build salesforce.com, WebEx, Postini (now Google) and Oracle. Their direct understanding of the challenges of running a subscription business gave them a unique insight. Subscription companies build, manage and grow their businesses and their product portfolios based in part on their ability to configure services and accurately bill for them. With conventional billing systems companies capable of great innovations in products and services are often hamstrung by their billing systems.Until Zuora came along, SaaS companies were limited in how they could monetize their services. Subscriptions were manually administered with billing systems designed for the product world where there were relatively few purchases. The SaaS industry is unique because customers can add, change or delete services at will. The number of transactions can easily swamp a conventional billing approach.Subscriptions may be the next big monetization model for the Internet. PayPal automated online payments, Amazon simplified online commerce and Google democratized online advertisements. The world still needs a way to operationalize and run a subscription business online. That’s where Zuora fits and it is why they’ve earned a 2009 WhizKids award.

Why we like themZuora’s first product, Z-Billing, has already attracted more than 70 customers since its launch in May 2008. Scalable, flexible and easy-to-use, Z-Billing was named “the Salesforce of online billing” by TechCrunch. Zuora launched its second product, Z-Payments, just five months later, and announced a strategic partnership with Internet giant PayPal. At salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2008, the company introduced Z-Force, the first billing and payment solution fully integrated with salesforce.com.

Zuora and MarketoOne of Zuora’s earliest customers, Marketo won a WizKids award (2008) for its sophisticated and easy to use marketing automation software that helps marketing and sales work together to drive revenue and improve marketing accountability. Delivered as an on-demand service and completely integrated with Salesforce.com, customers can be running Marketo in under a day, with no IT support. Business challengeMarketo’s existing billing system experienced frequent downtime and couldn’t accommodate Marketo’s need for flexibility and agility around pricing. Managing and updating information in the existing system required cumbersome processes and involvement from support staff. This problem remained a drain on company resources and employee time resulting in decreased productivity and less time spent on customer service. Even without subscription billing automation to help, right from the start Marketo adhered to a policy of adapting its billing to meet its customers’ needs. The result was a lot of manual effort. Like many on-demand companies, Marketo has customers on a variety of billing plans that include monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual billing

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cycles. Each customer has unique requirements that must be addressed to ensure that they receive exactly what they need from the service. Phil Fernandez, CEO of Marketo recalls, “We were pretty audacious at the start, we didn’t worry about having the ability to bill, fortunately, technology caught up with us.” With 150 customers he continued, “I was trying to do billing myself and it was killing me, so I knew the business problem.” When Fernandez learned about Zuora, he was eager to find out more. Marketo became a customer in the beta process.SaaS vendors understand the importance of service to a degree that other vendors may not. They have to because they understand that in a service model customers will not tolerate mediocre service. Says Fernandez, “We’re at similar stages, dealing with similar issues, because of that it’s been easy to work with Zuora. They’re very forthright people and easy to work with.”

ResultsWith Z-Billing, Marketo can now easily manage and update customer billing information, effectivly eliminating cumbersome processes and the need for an expensive support staff. Marketo’s billing operations consist of a weekly billing process that manages all recurring customer billing, while maintaining complete integration with QuickBooks. Marketo also automated all of its recurring credit card processing with Z-Billing. Now is Marketo able to adapt their pricing plan to incorporate market feedback in a more agile fashion. Although there has been no formal ROI study completed to date, Fernandez estimates that Zuora has saved him the equivalent of one staff position.

SummaryZuora recently launched a billing service for Facebook applications. These applications typically may only cost a few dollars per month, but the huge number of applications and users means a significant opportunity. Prior to Zuora, small developers could only hope to monetize applications like these through an advertising model, which is not very lucrative. With a better way to monetize the investment in applications, we expect to see more applications on the market that are tailored to the needs of smaller user populations.

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Xactly Corporation35 S. Market StreetSan Jose, CA 95113www.xactlycorp.com

What they doFounded in 2005, Xactly produces an on-demand sales compensation management (SCM) application. One of the first companies to do so, Xactly has lifted the compensation management process out of messy spreadsheets and added a level of precision that takes guess work, error and complexity out of paying sales people.

Why we like themUntil SCM became an on-demand application, companies either had to use expensive on-premise systems or resort to tracking commissions in spreadsheets that quickly became unwieldy. In fact, most companies still use in-house developed spreadsheets for managing incentive compensation — not because they are effective tools, but because there have been few alternatives.SCM is not a sexy application area unless you are a sales manager looking for ways to keep the troops engaged, a sales representative wanting to ensure he or she is properly compensated or a financial analyst working through the weekend to get the commission reports and checks printed. Interestingly, each of these constituents has the same need for fast, accurate commission accounting.Xactly integrates with Salesforce.com and Oracle as well as multiple accounting applications to provide sales people, their managers and finance departments with accurate and up to date information on incentive compensation. Xactly is not the only company in this space but their early attention to this market, robust solution set and rapid growth make them a good fit for a 2009 WizKids award.

IngresIngres Corporation is a leading provider of open source database management software and support services, serving thousands of customers through major development, sales and support centers around the world. The fast-growing company faced a formidable array of sales compensation management challenges, including multi-currency payouts, maximizing compensation process accuracy and productivity, and ensuring SOX compliance. The company used a complex spreadsheet system to manage commissions for the first year. But predictably – lacking reporting, audit and multi-currency functions and unable to adequately scale – that solution ran out of gas as the new company continued its rapid expansion.Ingres already relied almost completely on SaaS-based application support including CRM from Salesforce.com and accounting from Intacct. When the company needed a sales compensation solution, the executives did not need to be convinced about SaaS.“We soon became too mature and global for a solution like that [spreadsheets]

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to be effective,” said Mike Kostow, vice president of business operations, Ingres. “Fortunately, the Software-as-a-Service industry was on its own maturity curve, and 100-percent SaaS-based sales compensation management solutions were now an attractive option. On-demand was very clearly the way we wanted to go to leverage advantages in cost, time to market and scalability.”As is the case with so many companies that use Salesforce CRM, members of Ingres’ sales team attended Dreamforce, where they discovered Xactly. In a short time, Ingres decided to implement Xactly Incent to automate its global incentive compensation management process end to end, from plan design and distribution to ongoing administration to reporting and auditing. .

ImplementationThe implementation went quickly taking two months and beginning during the holiday season in 2007. Xactly worked with Solution Partners, Inc. (SPI), a certified implementation partner that is close to Ingres’ headquarters, to deliver Ingres’ Xactly implementation.The timeframe for Ingres’ implementation of Xactly had these milestones:• Initial login for Ingres system administrator – Dec. 20, 2007• Business groups, roles, calendar, foreign exchange rates, users, titles delivered to SPI – January 9, 2008• Functional Requirements v1 – Feb. 13, 2008• Final version and go-live date – Feb. 28, 2008“Both the CFO and I had heard positive things about Xactly Incent. Once we saw the application, we were pleased with what it provided in the way of robust reporting and multi-currency support, easy integration and scalability, and ensured accuracy,” says Doug Harr, CIO, Ingres.

ResultsWhen the company rolled out its 2008 sales compensation plans to the field through Xactly Incent, the improvement that the solution brought to compensation management process was readily apparent. “Plan implementation was an extremely simple process, wrapped up in well under two weeks,” recalls Shelley Keefe, business operations analyst, Ingres. “Before I had to manage three separate compensation plans in three separate ways; now I can combine their rollout and management in one system. One load, and I’m done.”Using Xactly Incent’s integrated Xactly Document Management feature, Ingres now distributes and obtains signoffs on compensation plans and certification letters electronically, resulting in further speed advantages and other benefits. “Plan signoff used to be a frustrating and time-consuming manual process, but doing it electronically through Xactly Incent saves us countless hours of chasing people down,” claims Keefe. “Plus we’re easily able to provide a report to the auditors as to who has accepted and signed off on their plans. A complete audit trail is right there in the system and no longer in some notebook.” Xactly has made life better for sales representatives, too. Rather than spending valuable time on shadow accounting, they can now focus on their primary responsibilities. Instead of receiving manually produced, difficult-to-comprehend statements, reps now have real-time, online visibility into plans and attainment. “Now if a rep or field manager has a question, I get on the phone and walk them quickly through it,” says Keefe. “I can point to a line item, and they will see exactly what I’m seeing as we go through the commission and exchange rates that have been

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applied to each credit. I like that enormously, as does the field. This, and so much else, simply wasn’t possible before Xactly.”

SummaryIt is ironic that companies use accounting systems for so many business processes, but when it comes to paying sales people, spreadsheets are still so common. The availability of on-demand computing has made sophisticated business applications like Xactly Incent affordable to a huge market. Moreover, the ubiquity afforded by Internet accessibility means that sales people can check their commission status regardless of their locations.Having an incentive compensation management tool makes it possible for sales people to quickly engage in what-if analysis and this is especially important near the end of a period when they want to optimize their time and maximize revenues. Xactly continues to grow and to expand its offerings. Relatively recent additions to the product set include document management and analytics. With each addition, Xactly increases the distance between ad-hoc, spreadsheet-bound processes and the accuracy and precision companies require in today’s market.

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Unisfair149 Commonwealth DriveMenlo Park, CA 94025www.unisfair.com

What they doUnisfair was founded in 2000 and provides virtual events and virtual environments for professional and technical organizations. Companies use Unisfair for virtual interactions that generate well-qualified leads and extend their market reach while reducing or eliminating the need for travel. With energy costs wildly fluctuating in the last several years, the concern about carbon footprints and the recession, Unisfair presents a solution to multiple business challenges while enabling companies to continue their vital work communicating their message and generating leads.As a green solution, Unisfair and similar companies are leading the way by showing that robust economic activity and concern about energy conservation can work hand in hand.

Why we like themManaging a virtual event is in many ways as challenging as hosting the conventional kind. Just as with a conventional trade show, a virtual show has to offer live conference sessions, an exhibit floor and opportunity for professional networking.With a virtual show, to a certain degree, the audience has to be taught how to participate if the event is to be successful. We believe Unisfair has done a credible job in all of these areas, not simply in hosting the events.. Importantly, with Unisfair, the Internet can deliver all aspects of a trade show without downloading any special applications. Attendees simply use their web browsers and navigate the virtual environment with a mouse.The virtual events market is new and companies like Unisfair are developing the standards and processes that will be commonplace in a few years now.

Quest SoftwareQuest Software is an enterprise software company based in Aliso Viejo, California. The company provides products and services that enhance user experience with Microsoft products such as Windows and Exchange. Eric Myers, Director of Internet Marketing at Quest began looking for an alternative marketing vehicle in 2007 to help market its suite of products. Innitially the company was focused on a product that is competitive with Unisfair but they were not pleased because the look and feel of the product lacked a business orientation. Also attendees needed as much as 30 minutes or more to download and set up software. This and the lack of robust security and a user interface that Meyers felt was not professional enough for their purposes made Meyers decide to keep looking. Eventually Quest found Unisfair through a simple Google search. Other products that Meyers looked at had dual purposes. While they could be used for business trade shows they were also used for other virtual events and sometimes lacked the robust security that business events needed. Unisfair’s long list of business oriented features attracteed Meyers, some of which include:

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• The ability to provide a multi-lingual product in 16 languages and global services from its Tel Aviv office• Custom theme for all locations; separation of user interface and functionality• Seamless integration to user databases, third party microsites, salesforce.com and WebEx, webcasting• Lead ranking intelligence• Year-round Virtual Event Center (365 virtual environment)• E-commerce functionality

It was clear to Meyers that Unisfair would help him reach more people and develop more leads on a small budget. Unisfair’s virtual environment meant that more senior level decision makers could attend without the challenges of travel and time away from the office. Unisfair also makes it possible to keep a show open on the Internet after the event dates meaning that people can access show information longer. The results include:

• Increased engagement, attention and understanding with customers, partners and employees• New revenue streams, targeted business leads, talent recruitment • Enhanced visibility and brand awareness/loyalty• Cost savings and increased productivity by limiting the need for travel

ImplementationQuest had reasonable goals for its first project. The company wanted to generate leads at a low cost/high ROI and it needed to extend its brand by educating business partners and customers. Quest began implementing a two-month plan in the summer of 2007 for a virtual event to be held later that year.The project work included implementing educational demos and webcasts, showcasing Quest’s products and services within the environment (booth, resource center) and introducing the audience to a new management and support tool. The project included all of the event, promotion and venue characteristics of a live event. The work broke into several phases.

• Planning for event (2 weeks)• Design for event (including building the environment – 4 weeks)• Production, Promotions & Sales (6 weeks – typically overlaps with design stage)

In addition, Quest began promoting the event two months in advance with e-mail blasts and on-site adver¬tising. They also experimented with Google Adwords, which paid for itself in the number of leads that it generated. A month prior to the event, the company’s partners be¬gan marketing it to their customers as well.

ResultsQuest’s first virtual event was held in September 2007 and it lasted eight hours. It included such partners as Microsoft and Unisys as well as several Quest booths, which showcased several different solutions. In addition there were seven conference sessions (webcasts) including keynotes, product demonstrations and panel sessions.More than five hundred (552) unique visitors attended the event and nearly 1,400 people registered on the site, which gave the company a large pool of quality leads. These visits were in-depth and the average time spent at the event was 69 minutes. The most popular webcast drew 352 attendees and several webcasts happened

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simultaneously. The cost per inquiry was twenty-three dollars, a respectable cost profile when other modalities are considered. Quest was pleased with the results and has gone on to host several more virtual events.

SummaryEric Myers has described the company’s virtual trade show as, “One of those rare events that provided a good way to execute all three activities, (tradeshow floor/exhibits, conference sessions and networking) which a webcast can’t do. The people who registered provided us with their contact information so we could market to them after the event, even if they didn’t attend. Also, because we were able to set up booths, we could expose people to a variety of offerings.”Virtual shows are not yet at the point where they will replace conventional trade shows, but the availability of products like Unisfair’s means companies have new alternatives. With this technology, companies can elect to add shows to their scheduals at a fraction of the cost they usually deal with. Moreover, as the world tries to become a greener place and carbon taxation looms everywhere, an affordable option like a virtual trade show can yield numerous benefits. This is certainly a technology that will drive markets in the future.

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TimeTrade Systems100 Crosby DriveBedford, MA 01730www.timetrade.com

What do they doTimeTrade develops and markets appointment scheduling applications for large enterprises and government agencies that need to schedule hundreds of thousands of appointment a year. Appointments are most closely associated with medical and health services, but they are also essential to retailers, financial services, and any organization that depends on appointments to drive revenue and business. Scheduling an appointment may seem simple but it can be expensive and time consuming for vendors. Often making an appointment means identifying a room and specialized equipment as well as the right person to perform a service. Too often companies keep separate paper-based schedules for each component, which can mean difficulty getting all the planets to align. Changing appointments is difficult for the same reasons. TimeTrade simplifies the process, integrates with CRM applications and provides customers with confirmations and reminders. The result is less waiting for customers and a more predictable business and revenue stream for the service or product provider.

Why we like themCustomers have a basic choice when buying services—make an appointment or walk in. The more complicated the service the less likely that a walk-in can get served fast and get on with life. People will be patient for a brief span of time but patience evaporates quickly and often service businesses lose out. One alternative is to over staff—to be always ready to handle peak demand but few businesses can afford to pay staff that are not optimally busy. Also, in many specialized areas such as medical diagnostic testing, the high investment in equipment makes it necessary to keep staff busy or lose money.Many services including retirement planning, pet grooming, home renovation design, photo portrait sittings, medical and health services and government-sponsored services such as the passport office are all candidates for appointments automation. And just the mention of a state’s department of motor vehicles (DMV) can elicit stories of long waits from almost anyone.The alternative is to make appointments for service and preferably, to automate the function. But until now many of the businesses that could most benefit from appointment automation could not afford the high cost of computing equipment and the expertise to run it.TimeTrade has a good idea with its appointment scheduling automation. The company offers two SaaS-based products TimeTrade Enterprise Scheduling Application (TESA) and TimeDriver an on-demand individual scheduling tool. Any business can afford TimeTrade and any business can benefit from it. Bosley is a great example.

BosleyBosley has been the largest provider of hair transplants in North America for more than three decades. Headquartered in Beverly Hills, the company has performed more than 200,000 procedures on men and women from 60 different countries. Through its 24/7 call center and front office staff, the company fields upwards of 40,000 calls

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per month, which are handled by one hundred patient service representatives. More than 9,000 appointments per month have to be scheduled across Bosley’s 88 offices throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico.On the back end, the appointments need to coordinate staff and facilities in real-time. The staff includes more than 26 physicians, 50 senior counselors and office personnel as well as multiple physical resources including surgical facilities and equipment. The incoming phone call is often the first point of contact for the patient and Bosley has to demonstrate the highest level of quality and service to create a solid first impression and put the customer at ease. In 2007, Bosley integrated their Siebel CRM system with a web-based telephony solution (UCN) to support a central call center that served many locations. Mark Davenport, Director of IT at Bosley says that significant growth in the business put a strain on the company’s largely manual appointments system. While the centralized approach addressed issues such as ensuring the patient spoke to the right person, there were still issues in scheduling the actual appointment. When a patient called in, Bosley representatives were faced with checking a scheduling board in Siebel as well as three to four different spreadsheets to determine the most convenient time available, by location, for the patient. It was a process that was prone to errors such as double bookings or incorrect information. Additionally, the lack of rules-based scheduling created inconsistencies across the Bosley operation where different offices could schedule appointments that did not always optimize the patient’s and counselor’s time. In early 2008, Davenport decided to investigate automation strategies to help improve the way Bosley made appointments. His objectives included finding a solution that enforced scheduling rules, easily integrated into Siebel, minimized errors and provided role-based access and administration. The ideal solution also had to give management better visibility, reporting and control over scheduling operations. Bosley found TimeTrade Systems through an organic Google search on the Internet. TimeTrade offers a scalable, SaaS-based, enterprise scheduling solution that can be easily customized for any industry. The solution integrates easily with CRM packages and other customer systems allowing a smooth transition for the customer and allowing enterprises, like Bosley, the ability to quickly measure results. TimeTrade’s customer services team worked closely with Bosley’s Siebel integration team to define the project requirements and action plan. Over the course of two months, TimeTrade and Bosley engaged in two joint application development (JAD) sessions plus two additional requirements-gathering meetings. Requirements-gathering spanned multiple departments within Bosley — including the call center, CRM and business groups and the front office. To speed the process, TimeTrade proactively provided Bosley with a process-engineering proposal based on the requirements of the various departments. The resulting integration between TimeTrade and Bosley’s CRM system enabled the patient service representatives to launch TimeTrade’s scheduling tool directly from Siebel. Once an appointment time is selected, it is automatically stored within Siebel and customers are automatically sent appointment confirmations.The integration was a big step. As Davenport says, “Siebel is our system of record and we record every single time we touch a patient whether a patient calls in, speaks with a counselor or sees a doctor.” Getting the workflows right was also important. He continued, “We have a fairly complex process. A patient typically sees a senior counselor before seeing a doctor and we like to do all that in a single session.”

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Within four months Davenport says Bosley staff were able to make appointments using Siebel and TimeTrade through the call center or front office. And two months later patients could also make their own appointments from the Bosley self-service web site.The integration achieved:

• Single sign-in launch of TimeTrade from within a Siebel patient record.• Location and patient information handoff from Siebel to TimeTrade.• Automatic creation of new patient records not yet within the TimeTrade system.• Patient scheduling through TimeTrade, via their call center or Web-based self-service.• Comprehensive appointment confirmation information passed back to and recorded within, Siebel via web service message callback.• Extensive daily use, schedule, and resource management reports.

ResultsBecause Bosley was able to configure the appointment scheduling application to fit their business through TimeTrade’s rules-based technology, Bosley is able to capture the CRM information during the scheduling process and set the rules the company needs its staff to follow to ensure consistency and smooth workflow.TimeTrade now enforces rules that patient service representatives follow including: a maximum number of appointments that can be scheduled at a given time at a given location; the ability to manage individual schedules of physicians and senior consultants; and the ability to allow patients to schedule and manage certain types of appointments.Inevitably, people ask about ROI for almost any software implementation, even a SaaS-based solution like TimeTrade. Davenport summed the return provided by TimeTrade up this way: “We’ve never really thought of it in terms of ROI, we just needed it, we couldn’t continue doing business the way we were. The old system wasn’t scalable given our growth.”

ConclusionBeagle research shows that adding appointment scheduling that is easy to use for customers and service providers is one thing from which almost any business can benefit. Vendors can make more productive use of their time and resources and customers appreciate not having to wait. Appointment scheduling helps any company present a more polished and professional face to the customer and that can be an advantage in an increasingly competitive world. Bosley’s ability to schedule an initial consultation followed immediately by a doctor exam, helps Bosley to differentiate itself.

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Right90607 Menlo Ave.Menlo Park, CA 94025www.right90.com

What they doRight90 helps companies bring accuracy to forecasting so that a forecast is useful for business planning. It sounds simple but according to our research, a long list of technical, behavioral and institutional obstacles seem to prevent all but a tiny fraction of companies from having reliable forecasts. The problem is particularly acute in Right90’s primary market, manufacturing companies. In a business like software, a revenue forecast is usually good enough since products are often customized for clients on site or they are shipped shrink wrapped. In either case, a company ships one product and the revenue forecast tells the whole story. Manufacturers have a different reality. A revenue forecast has to be cross matched with a company’s ability to make and ship the order. A deal for something that can’t be delivered on time is useless. The revenue can’t be booked and the customer will probably be upset. So will the board and the investors.Right90 does what we think of as multi-dimensional forecasting. Instead of the proverbial spreadsheet, a database and analytics undergird a system that gives alerts to sales and operational parts of a company. When the forecast changes, all affected parties are notified so that they can contribute to getting it back in alignment. With this approach, there are fewer surprises and more time to react which results in accurate guidance to the people who monitor profit and loss, not just revenue.Right90’s approach and insight into the forecasting process make them a natural to receive a 2009 WizKids award.

Why we like themAnyone can develop a revenue forecast and unfortunately Beagle research shows that about 75% of them are useless. In general, the sales department is notoriously bad at providing an accurate forecast. When the forecasted amount of revenue comes in, it often represents deals that were ‘blue birds’ or deals that sales people sand bagged so they would have something in reserve in case the sure things didn’t materialize. In the worst case scenario, sometimes deals are brought forward in the pipeline at the cost of a greater than acceptable discount.This kind of forecasting works when only revenue is measured. In many businesses, revenue measurements are enough because products are generic, even if they need customization after the sale. But in manufacturing, for example, you can’t sell what you can’t produce. A factory has its target output. Sell too little and you have idle capacity and lost revenue opportunity. Sell too much and you can’t fill the order so the revenue can’t be booked. Do either of these things too often and customers get cranky while the board starts interviewing for your replacement. Right90 is the technology part of a people, process and technology makeover of the forecasting process and beyond the technology they have some good ideas of what to do about people and process. The process is straightforward. Make a forecast using the best data you have and stick with it, monitoring for changes. When things change, alert the relevant parties and ask the important questions — Can we meet this changed demand? How does it impact revenue? What can we do to help sales and the customer?

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The most successful companies using Right90 encourage their sales people to build accuracy into their processes. Some companies even incentivize fore accuracy as well as quota. The objective is to have no negative surprises, to keep production at optimum levels. As our customer story on Evergreen Solar demonstrates.

Evergreen SolarEvergreen Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: ESLR) was founded in 1994. The company develops, manufactures and markets String Ribbon™ solar power products using its proprietary, low-cost wafer technology. The company’s patented wafer manufacturing technology uses significantly less polysilicon than conventional processes. Evergreen’s products provide reliable and environmentally clean electric power for residential and commercial applications globally and they are much in demand. The company has two factories in the United States, two partner factories in Germany, and three global sales offices, covering APAC, EMEA, and the Americas.Evergreen employs a very lean sales staff with just one key sales person for each region, and a few large customers comprise the majority of the company’s business. The Evergreen Solar distribution channel consists of a mix of distributors, installers and integrators, with each party adding a layer of complexity and lag time to the forecasting process. Unlike more predictable, established or steady-paced industries, the market for solar technologies is relatively new and is growing at an exceptional rate. For companies like Evergreen Solar that utilize just-in-time manufacturing and therefore carry a very small amount of inventory, when demand outpaces supply there are a number of unique forecasting challenges. Sales Planning and Analysis Manager Alex Keally oversees the entire order-to-cash process at Evergreen Solar and he was grew concerned about the company’s one-dimensional forecast. Already a Salesforce.com user, Keally and Evergreen Solar went looking for forecasting tools that would help the company to scale with demand. Keally knew the static spreadsheet forecasting method they were using could no longer provide the immediate visibility he needed. Keeping the spreadsheets manageable prevented Evergreen from creating the level of detail it needed, yet adding detail would have made the process too cumbersome. “Our old forecasting method, which was executed entirely within spreadsheets was too simplistic and yet, wasn’t easy enough to use,” said Keally. He went on to explain, “Our factories are very capital intensive, to get the cost of solar down to where it needs to be we have to optimize production. We need to produce at full capacity and find a way to sell it all.”Like many Salesforce.com customers, Keally went to Dreamforce to see what additional applications were available to help with forecasting for his manufacturing company. There he met representatives from Right90 and was impressed with several aspects of the Right90 solution. First, Right90 provided easy visibility at the level of detail he needed to inform action at every level of the organization. Also, in contrast to spreadsheets that can take days or weeks to consolidate Right90 enables real time forecasting. Finally, Right90’s patented variance engine provides the ability to both record forecast data and analyze changes in it. In short, Right90 makes forecasting easy for all parties involved and enables real-time forecast roll-up to reduce the chance of error and provide constant access to up-to-the minute forecast information.

ImplementationRight90 worked closely with the Evergreen project leader in a “Discovery Workshop”on all the decision points to be considered in the implementation through shared documents and configuration reviews via online demonstrations for clarification.

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Prior to starting the “Discovery Workshop” to begin implementation, Evergreen completed a questionnaire that allowed Right90 to prepare a proposed configuration. The workshop then focused on enabling the Right90 team to understand Evergreen’s business needs. Right90 educated Evergreen on the key configuration decisions required to set up the application. Once all the decisions were made, Right90 configured the system over the course a couple weeks. After that, Right90 demonstrated the system to the key Evergreen stakeholders and feedback was gathered. Based on this input, Right90 made a few configuration changes over the course of a week. The Right90 implementation manager gave in-depth administrator training to Alex Keally in a two-hour session. All users were trained in another two-hour session on another day. All of this was done remotely over web conferencing, with no third parties involved.

ResultsEvergreen Solar sees the following benefits from Right90:1. Maximized revenue potential: By avoiding over- or underestimating inventory needs, Evergreen Solar is able to utilize just-in-time manufacturing practices and deliver exactly what the customer is expecting. Therefore, the company is able to keep inventory and price levels low. 2. Accurate, actionable forecasts: From the sales team to manufacturers and executives, every level of the Evergreen Solar business is now involved in the forecasting process. Right90 provides up-to-the-minute information sharing between multiple users in different locations. As a public company, Evergreen Solar also needs to be able to answer investors’ questions quickly; Right90 helps the company feed accurate, real-time information through the CFO to key stakeholders.3. Visibility into forecast changes: Visibility drives future plans and feeds into capital planning at Evergreen Solar’s manufacturing facilities. “I often get the question, where did it change, who changed it, and why? That was far too difficult to track with a simple spreadsheet. Now, I have the answers executives need,” Keally said. For example, a change in the average selling price in the United States may have implications on the German market. Right90 helps Keally identify and communicate that information to factories around the world. The Right90 solution exposes more useful information than traditional spreadsheet forecasting, allowing one country to anticipate changes based on shifts that occurred in another region.

SummaryWith Right90, we have a higher level of detail, so product codes, shipping terms, payment specifics and all the details they need are incorporated into one useful, actionable line item per customer. Said Keally, “Our finance team needs to be able to forecast revenue by currency, while the operations team is interested in revenue by product type — Right90 gives us the appropriate level of visibility for every business function.”

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Manticore Technology9111 Jollyville Rd., Suite 260Austin, TX 78759www.manticoretechnology.com

What they doManticore Technology is a SaaS-based demand generation solution. Manticore enables marketers to move sales prospects through an automated pipeline from lead nurturing through lead management and lead scoring ultimately feeding sales teams high quality, actionable leads. Lead nurturing enables companies to provide needed information to prospects efficiently and cost effectively only involving sales people when an opportunity is ready to progress. Manticore makes its mark by being among the easiest marketing automation products to install, while delivering a robust platform and solution set.

Why we like themEven in good economic times, lead generation resembles the average major league batting average. The majority of leads generated often fail to result in business for a company but a small improvement—an additional base hit or qualified lead—can be the difference between mediocrity and elite status. Lead nurturing has become a staple of on-demand front office automation in the last few years. However, the market is far from saturated and many marketing organizations still perform their duties without the benefit of such tools that keep interested prospects in the loop. Our research indicates that between two-thirds and three-quarters of leads generated through conventional marketing programs fail to bear fruit, hence the baseball analogy. An automated lead nurturing program can do what conventional manual programs cannot. It can keep leads warm until they become actionable. As our customer example shows, one of the great sources of new leads can be the people from a year or two back who left the sales process making the dreaded no-decision.Manticore Technology has the ability to get customers up and running very quickly, bypassing the time consuming and costly implementation that sometimes hold other solutions back. We like their approach, especially in a recession. When budgets for generating raw leads may be constrained, Manticore shows how to do more with less.

IntellitacticsIntellitactics provides a suite of complementary security incident and event management (SIEM) products, including Intellitactics Security Manager and Intellitactics SAFE, a new family of security management appliances. Intellitactics serves global companies in many vertical segments and civil and defense related government agencies. Michaela Dempsey, director of marketing at Intellitactics, has big responsibilities including lead generation for a sales team that hunts in North America and much of the rest of the world. Before implementing Manticore for demand generation, Dempsey and her team had been generating 35% of the qualified leads that entered the sales pipeline. While that was considered very good, Dempsey wasn’t happy to rest. She wanted a way to increase the number of qualified leads entering the sales pipeline.

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During the summer of 2007, the Intellitactics marketing team began a careful evaluation of demand generation solutions and arrived at a short list of offerings. As a Salesforce.com user, Dempsey attended DreamForce in 2007 and visited the Manticore booth as well as several other demand generation partners’ booths. The marketing team performed an evaluation of three vendors and ultimately chose Manticore. What sold the team on Manticore was a combination of factors that included price and functionality. Manticore was the only solution they evaluated that had a drag and-drop capability to build multi-touch marketing campaigns, which was a huge plus for Intellitactics. Also, the application was affordable, simple to install and very easy to learn.In January 2008, with help from Manticore, the Intellitactics marketing team integrated Manticore Technology with their existing instance of salesforce.com in just one-hour using a simple three step process. First a dedicated Manticore Technology Customer Success Manager (CSM) helped the team to install a server-side included file on their website. Next, the CSM installed a custom package within salesforce.com that installed a marketing object and custom fields to complete integration. Finally, the CSM configured which data points to synchronize into salesforce.com and where they are to by synced.One of the most interesting early programs involved old prospects. Every company has a list of customers who entered a sales process and eventually decided not to make a purchase. Those old leads frequently contain real opportunities but often marketing and sales do not have the time to do an adequate job of nurturing them. If properly supported many of these dead leads can come back to life and re-enter the sales process.Dempsey immediately used Manticore to approach the old leads from the two most recent prior years and her efforts began to bear fruit. According to Dempsey, running programs on old leads is, “Wonderful because we didn’t have to spend extra marketing dollars to find them. We just developed a drip marketing campaign.” What Dempsey especially liked was Manticore’s ability to treat different prospect groups differently and evaluate their responses to programs. “I can make different scoring campaigns for the groups and I can better make messages that speak to the specialized needs of the group, develop different scoring and deliver better specialized leads to sales,” She said.

ResultsDempsey’s results have been especially gratifying for her and the company.

1. In the first eight months of using Manticore Technology, Intellitactics closed six deals that can be traced to Manticore.2. Sales cycles have decreased by 30% since they started using Manticore.3. The percentage of qualified leads moving from marketing to sales pipelines rose from 35.7% to 58% with Manticore Technology.

Most importantly the sales team readily adapted to Manticore. Dempsey says that “Sales people notice within 24 hours if it’s not working.” One time, data was improperly synchronized between Salesforce.com and Manticore causing the lead flow to stop. The sales people noticed right away and within a day they were asking what had happened. The problem was minor and got fixed right away. Said Dempsey of the experience, “They (the sales people) found something that works for them and they miss it when it’s not there.”

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SummaryIntellitactics’ experience with Manticore shows that even a simple idea can have great power. Marketers have always gone back to old leads to find new opportunities but few have had the benefit of automation that enables them to touch each prospect to deliver the information that each requires. Intellitactics’ success goes beyond its old leads. Manticore’s ability to administer multiple databases and scoring paradigms is enabling Dempsey and her team to tailor messages to the different constituencies that Intellitactics serves. The ability to separately score different customer types is one reason Intellitactics has nearly doubled the number of qualified leads that marketing sends to sales. Finally, ease of integration and implementation cannot be overlooked. Manticore’s ease of use and operational flexibility adds a good deal to the overall package and is an important reason for this award.

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EchoSign 555 Bryant Street, #101Palo Alto, CA 94301 www.echosign.com

What they doEchoSign is an on-demand electronic signature solution that enables businesses and individuals to get contracts signed, tracked and filed over the Web. Today, EchoSign has over 750,000 users worldwide using its electronic signature solution to shorten sales cycles and increase revenue. Customers range from small home offices to large enterprises including Qualcomm and BT.

Why we like themThe contract management process has not changed much since the broad dissemination of the fax machine and the introduction of overnight package delivery in the 1980’s. Regardless of the size of a deal, parties tend to go back and forth with negotiations and while this was manageable in the 1980’s today many more products and services are available and require some form of contracting—about 50% by our estimates. In an on-demand world where we can utilize software over the Internet in minutes, it makes little sense to take days to finalize contracts. EchoSign has a deceptively simple solution that accelerates the contracting process to something close to Internet speed. The product can’t do anything about the human input in negotiations but it takes the latency out of sending documents, capturing signatures and managing those documents for quick retrieval over the life of the agreement.EchoSign takes the pain out of paperwork involved in contracting, and makes closing a deal on the Web as simple as it is to work on WebEx or track in SalesForce. Ultimately, it fixes a process for managing a high volume of contracts that has been broken for too long. For all of that, they deserve a 2009 WizKids award.

Customer exampleOnvia (Nasdaq: ONVI) a company that tracks all government purchasing activity in addition to commercial and residential projects in development for markets such as architecture and engineering, construction, IT/telecom, business consulting services, operations and maintenance, and transportation. The company has more than 8,400 subscribers across the United States that rely on them as a comprehensive resource for industry-specific information needed to make intelligent sales decisions. Onvia needed an efficient way to close service agreements. With a volume of 300-500 sales contracts per month, they needed an application that allowed their sales reps to close customer sales while they were on the phone. A key requirement was that the tool needed to be easy to use for both the sales reps and their customers. Prior to implementing EchoSign’s solution, Onvia’s manual service agreement closing process was a multi-step headache — a sales rep first secured payment terms from the customer on the phone, then the sales rep faxed the agreement to the customer, sent multiple reminders to the customer, and finally received a signed contract about 4-5 days later.

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Service was not provisioned until the customer signed the paper contract. The final contract was then processed by finance. This process negatively impacted revenue recognition in multiple ways. For instance, a sales rep may have had payment terms from a customer on the last day of the month, but if the customer did not sign the contract by the last day of the month Onvia couldn’t recognize revenue.This cumbersome process not only took valuable time from finance and sales teams, but it also risked the loss of potential customers and prospects if too much time elapsed between a verbal agreement and a signed contract. Something had to be done. After researching on-demand solutions, Onvia conducted a competitive, 30 day “bakeoff” with 8 sales reps that tested two leading e-signature vendors. EchoSign came out ahead due to feedback from the Onvia customer base. To implement EchoSign, Onvia created an internal process between sales and finance, and had an hour telephone training session with EchoSign’s support department. EchoSign’s solution was rolled out to the sales teams shortly thereafter.

ResultsEchoSign’s electronic signature solution was first rolled out to sales associates in June 2008, and their results are impressive. With EchoSign, contracts come back in 24 hours or less and Onvia has noticed an uptick in transactions since using EchoSign. In addition, finance has access to the online version of every contract and is automatically copied on every incoming agreement. The finance team at Onvia found that with EchoSign, they can quickly verify every transaction and every contract. Most importantly, sales reps can quickly obtain a signature and provision the service immediately.In addition, the EchoSign audit report enables sales reps to see when their clients have opened and viewed the contract. Many sales reps include the information from the audit trail in their sales forecasting because the data shows that if the customer views the agreement, there is a high likelihood that the contract will be signed in 24 hours. Today, Onvia has 50 sales representatives using EchoSign to deliver superior sales performance. Onvia is also working with the EchoSign open API to integrate EchoSign with NetSuite.

SummaryEchoSign represents a solution that adds value not by increasing customer intimacy but by improving operations. We think operational improvements have been de-emphasized in CRM in favor of intimacy for too long. At some point we reach levels of diminishing returns with any strategy and intimacy strategies may be close to this point. Operations represent a big and relatively uncharted area for front office applications to add value. Traditionally, when we think of operational improvements we focus on back office processes that get a product out the door, and rightly so. But in a services market — especially one where services can be provisioned on the Internet, the products that need to get out the door, are increasingly those that support the front office, like contracts.EchoSign’s approach to improving front office operations is insightful and provides an example of the possibilities inherent in improving operations for the front office.

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