ISACA Journal - 2012 Volume 2

eric Berridge is cofounder and principal of the business consulting firm Bluewolf, which provides life cycle innovation, cloud implementations, I T staffing, managed services and other services to sync business and IT for efficient, adaptive performance. He also coauthored the book Iterate or Die along with Bluewolf cofounder Michael Kirven.

Gates Corporation Makes Sales a
Companywide Effort in the Cloud

It is unfortunate that discussion in the media regarding the benefits of cloud computing has primarily focused on cost savings and the related ability of companies with smaller budgets to essentially rent by the hour the kind of computing capabilities that more well-funded organizations employ. To be sure, both points are valid—cloud computing capabilities are less expensive to implement and do help equalize the playing field between IT departments of varying budget size. However, these benefits are only periphery compared to the most game-changing benefit of the cloud: the ability to collaborate in real time.

Beyond cost savings, the real value of cloud
computing is its ability to facilitate collaboration
across all business
units—an ability
that becomes
increasingly
important as
businesses are
spread across the
globe. Cloud-based
solutions are web-
based and offer a real-time, single view of what
is going on; they provide a kind of visibility and
cohesion that on-premise software simply cannot
provide, no matter what the department’s budget is
and how powerful the mainframes are.

There are many business functions that, although they may have been practiced for decades, are difficult, if not impossible, to carry out effectively without leveraging the cloud. For example, accurate forecasting—which requires the constant, real-time input of numerous parties in numerous locations—requires a kind of global visibility and information sharing that can be achieved only in the cloud. As the benefits of companywide visibility and the ability to freely share information include lower supply chain costs, higher inventory turns, improved customer service, manufacturing efficiency

”

“The real value of cloud computing is its ability to facilitate collaboration across all business units.

and higher profitability, companies—even those that can readily afford huge mainframes and multimillion-dollar implementations—can hardly afford to dismiss cloud computing as a trend.

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A CASe exAMPLe

As the speed of the business cycle continues to accelerate, companies can increase their agility by creating a system in which disparate departments across the globe that normally do not even communicate can share information on which to base decisions. In this way, the cloud and other flexible technologies can dissolve departmental barriers that tend to silo information and keep decision makers in the dark.

Such is the case with Gates Corporation, a global, diversified industrial business, which recently worked with Bluewolf, a business consulting firm, to meet its need to automate and track a complex sales cycle across its entire global operation. Ultimately, Gates was able to generate metrics on customer interactions to give senior management a 360-degree view of the status of leads and proposals.

With operations in 29 countries, Denver, Colorado, USA-based Gates is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of industrial and automotive products. Recently, the company needed to enhance its ability to automate and track a complex sales cycle across global operations. Since Gates could not efficiently generate metrics on customer interactions, sales personnel could not easily view the status of leads. This deficiency delayed the time it took to close deals.

“We needed a CRM system that would allow us to establish worldwide standards, but which also featured the ability to customize processes for each region,” says Karl Moritz, senior vice president at Gates. “This was particularly challenging with offices on several continents. Cultures and processes vary widely.”