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AFL's Western Bulldogs take a mark on CRM

Melbourne-based AFL club, The Western Bulldogs, recently implemented the enterprise-edition of Salesforce.com CRM for its corporate sales division.
Written by Liam Tung, Contributing Writer

Melbourne-based AFL club, The Western Bulldogs, recently implemented the enterprise-edition of Salesforce.com CRM for its corporate sales division.

Chief operating officer Robert Stubbs said that AFL clubs are experiencing a period of consolidation, forcing clubs to find more efficient business practices.

"A lot of AFL clubs are running on spreadsheet solutions so this was a substantial leap forward [for us].

"I don't want to devalue the importance of memberships -- we've also signed on to the Ticketmaster database -- but from a corporate sales perspective, we need to place the same level of importance on our corporate customers as we do our football members," said Stubbs.

Before settling on Salesforce.com, Stubbs said the Bulldogs turned down three other solutions on the basis of scalability or capital outlay.

"Salesforce.com didn't require a major capital outlay; from that perspective, it was an ideal choice," said Stubbs. "Some were low cap but were not scalable. Others would have cost AU$150,000 to AU$300,000 for a similar solution -- but the extra bells and whistles didn't provide value for our requirements."

The Western Bulldogs first implemented the Professional version and then upgraded to the Enterprise Edition, which includes workflow and approval tools, improved reporting and better visibility of corporate information.

"We went live before Christmas ... by the end of February we were running at 95 percent utilisation which, from our perspective, was sensational.

"When customers called in, any of the sales executives can deal with the call directly due to the continuity of phone logs and e-mail logs in the system," said Stubbs.

Most importantly, Stubbs pointed out that sales people no longer rely on spreadsheets. He said the workflow and reporting tools have helped iron out bottlenecks and automate the sales cycle.

Another benefit, according to Stubbs, is that costs increase incrementally: "If I add another sales person I will only need to add AU$1,500 per year per salary".

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