SalesChief for Pivotal CRM 6.0: Overview, Part 2

This week we’re continuing our overview of SalesChief for Pivotal CRM 6.0 users, a powerful business and data analysis tool that enables sales and marketing executives to access the functionality of QlikView in order to gain insight into performance, pipeline breakdown, marketing ROI, lead analysis, and more. Today’s post looks at just a sampling of features that make the interface intuitive, flexible, easy to use, and effective for users from the first time they log in.

As we mentioned in the post two weeks ago, SalesChief can be accessed directly from a dedicated tab within the Pivotal application, which has been directly embedded into Pivotal’s SmartClient framework. From there, users can select from four main tabs that cover Sales Performance, Opportunity Analysis, Marketing Effectiveness, and Lead Analysis.

SalesChief maintains a unified template for visual consistency in the user interface throughout the application and within all four primary tabs. For example, the Sales Performance tab in SalesChief automatically positions date dimensions across the top of the page, and aligns sales representatives and other dimensions vertically along the left margin. Opening the Opportunity Analysis, the user can see that additional dimensions are available. But in all cases, this template can be configured to reflect how users want to see data in order to best fit their unique use cases.

SalesChief also uses a specific color scheme that visually guides the user into a better intuitive understanding of what they’re looking at. For example, green highlighting represents a selection (or multi-selection). For example, selecting a sales representative’s name highlights it in green, and that selection is also carried over to the top left-hand box on the screen. A green dot now also appears in any of the tabs in which there is applicable data related to the initial selection – in this case the sales representative’s name.

This ‘applicable data’ is highlighted in white. For example, looking at the sales rep’s data, white highlighting might show the months in which they had sales or the industries they sold into. Conversely, all of the elements that do not apply (in this case, months in which no sales were made or industries that were not been sold into) appear in grey highlighting.

Moving to the Opportunity Analysis tab from Sales Performance, the user will notice that the selections they just made in Sales Performance are automatically carried over. Users can selectively clear one or more individual sections within the tab, or they can affect a wholesale ‘clear’ using the button on the top menu bar to return to the original state, before any selections were made.

Users can also leverage forward and back buttons just as they would in a browser to access chronological selections, and can change display details on the fly using a simple toggle. For example, units of measure can be changed instantly from a dollar value to percentage breakdown. Similarly, the ‘fast change’ option allows the format of visual data representations to be adjusted on the fly – for example changing from a pie chart to a bar graph or block diagram.

These are just a few of the intuitive, flexible, user-friendly aspects inherent to SalesChief that make it useful to users from the moment they log in through Pivotal. It’s also important to remember that for every KPI in the software, there’s built-in ‘Export to Excel’ and print capability and that makes getting data out of the application as simple as one click. Tune in next week for details on insights SalesChief provides in a specific use case — a VP of Sales assessing and comparing the performance of sales team members.

For details on SalesChief, we invite you to download the SalesChief data sheet on our Resources & Downloads page, or to contact any member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com. You can also feel free to contact Tokara’s VP of Business Development, Mark Fillingim, directly at +1 972-719-0213.

SalesChief for Pivotal CRM 6.0: Overview, Part 2

Tokara Redefines Partnership in Pivotal 6.0 Upgrade for Kantar Retail

A hallmark of Tokara Solutions’ success as Pivotal CRM consultants has always been their focus on providing the highest level of Pivotal expertise coupled with an unflinching commitment to engaging with clients in a true partnership model. A recent upgrade to Pivotal 6.0 for Tokara client Kantar Retail illustrates both the value clients derive when ‘partnership’ is more than a marketing buzz word and the reasons Tokara extends it to every aspect of consultant engagement.

As a global consultancy providing insight and transformational growth solutions to leading blue chip brands and companies around the world, Kantar Retail makes powerful use of its Pivotal CRM solution, and fully understood the tangible benefits the company would see with an upgrade to Pivotal 6.0. Combining the best attributes of superior interface design with substantially increased functionality and ease of use, Kantar Retail chose Tokara Solutions as their partner in transitioning to Pivotal 6.0.

In working through upgrade details with Tokara, Kantar Retail wanted to ensure its own internal team was fully engaged and knowledgeable on all aspects of the software so the company wouldn’t need to rely heavily on external teams for future development requirements they might have. Customizing the engagement around the client’s requirements, Tokara fully integrated Kantar Retail’s technical team into the upgrade effort, providing side-by-side training and assigning appropriate tasking to team members, effectively leaving the team not only with a superior CRM product, but also with the knowledge and skills needed to maintain and further customize the solution moving forward.

Says Ginelle Davidson, MIS Director at Kantar Retail, “There’s no question the Tokara team has solid expertise in Pivotal CRM – but the added component that makes working with them entirely different is that their expertise comes with a commitment to partner in whatever way is best for that client. In our case, internal development teams worked side-by-side with Tokara’s consultants in a ‘train-the-trainer’ –style setup that prepared us to walk away from the upgrade not only with software we know we’ll see real ROI from, but a product we’re really able to ‘own’ in terms of future development needs we might have. It also meant our upgrade happened faster and with substantially lower cost than would have been the case in a more traditional implementation scenario.”

Says Shawn Grant, President and Founder of Tokara Solutions, “As a baseline, we ensure our Pivotal consultants really are the best in the industry – most of them have 10 to 15 years of experience with the software across a range of industries. But as one of the most specialized Pivotal Premier partners worldwide, we’re committed to more than just the expertise – we’re truly focused on making sure our clients see real results from their technology investment. This means that in every engagement, we’re looking at what ‘success’ means for that specific client, and how we can customize our model and our interactions with them to make sure they see the business results they need while also viewing Tokara as almost a part of their own team over the long term. We’re redefining what it means to be a ‘partner’ in the software industry because we think what results is a win for everyone.”

For details on Pivotal 6.0 upgrades or any of the CRM offerings of Tokara Solutions, please visit tokarasolutions.com or contact Mark Fillingim, VP of Business Development, at 972-719-0213.

Tokara Redefines Partnership in Pivotal 6.0 Upgrade for Kantar Retail