{"id":3325,"date":"2021-01-19T05:49:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T05:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/?p=3325"},"modified":"2023-04-19T09:21:52","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T09:21:52","slug":"gulf-drug-case-study-smaartt-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/gulf-drug-case-study-smaartt-digital\/","title":{"rendered":"Gulf Drug Turns Sales Cycles From Complex to Collaborative with Salesforce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learn how this pharmaceutical company is cracking sales at speed thanks to a customised platform:<\/strong><\/p>\n

UAE healthcare company\u00a0Gulf Drug<\/a>\u00a0works in a complex industry with long sales cycles across disparate departments. Sales reps work with a huge product portfolio, and on projects that range from equipping hospitals to implementing new medical devices.<\/p>\n

Which makes getting the insights they need to seal deals and speed up the process a constant challenge. And in an industry as complicated and time-critical as healthcare \u2013 where people across the organisation are involved in the same tender processes \u2013 a customisable platform is essential.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround 70% of our requirements were known to us,\u201d Aravind Rengaswamy, CFO & CIO of Gulf Drug said. \u201cBut we needed new functionality around workflows to support multi-stakeholder sales cycles and the quoting process. When you have multiple parties involved in a deal at once, you need all the customer information to be aligned.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we started the journey with Salesforce, we realised we could take our existing processes and a new system and blend them together for an enhanced way of working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Realising the best approach, especially while navigating the first lockdown of the pandemic, was difficult. But now, the company has 250 Salesforce users and a more streamlined and customised approach to sales \u2013 and its innovation is only just beginning.<\/p>\n

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“Not only does Salesforce help our sales team work more efficiently, but it gives us greater confidence in our data and our decision-making.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aravind Rengaswamy, CFO & CIO, Gulf Drug<\/p>\n

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Centralise sales activities for smoother, faster cycles:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Gulf Drug started using a CRM platform in 2013, but as its requirements grew, the team needed greater functionality. \u201cOur sales activities move fast,\u201d said Rengaswamy. \u201cWe wanted to use automation to help our sales team work more efficiently, and have access to customised reports and in-depth dashboards and analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company also needed a CRM platform that would support remote and mobile working \u2013 improving collaboration between teams, and ensuring all employees had up-to-date customer information.<\/p>\n

So in 2020, Gulf Drug began to search for\u00a0a CRM platform<\/a>\u00a0that could help them build a smoother and more efficient cross-team sales process, with greater visibility and alignment in serving customer needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to say sales activities had to be recorded in two days, but now it\u2019s instant,\u201d Rengaswamy said. \u201cNow you can finish everything on the same day and when you log onto your mobile in the morning, you can see everything you\u2019re working on.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is especially important when it comes to\u00a0sales in pharma and healthcare<\/a>. During the tender process \u2013 whether that\u2019s with hospitals or pharmacies \u2013 there are several parties across the organization involved. It\u2019s not unusual to have several different representatives doing product demos and being in contact with the customer at one time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSales is always a group,\u201d Rengaswamy explained. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about having one salesperson\u2019s activities in one place. You need to see pre-sales information, product knowledge, and past complaints. Sales, product, and service people need to be aligned to create a good customer impression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sales Cloud integrates with the company\u2019s Oracle platform, which means everyone can\u00a0work from a single application<\/a>\u00a0and with all the data they need for a 360-degree view of each customer.<\/p>\n

And with sales processes that can take up to eight months from lead to opportunity, every moment counts.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor one of our teams, the sales representatives are in Dubai and their solution engineers are in Jordan,\u201d said Bhanupriya Singh, Salesforce Consultant at Gulf Drug. \u201cSales reps can now log leads from their mobile application and send information to their team members wherever they are. It makes turnaround times much shorter and the data more accurate.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Automate business processes for an efficient approach to sales:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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A huge driver for a customized sales platform came from the company\u2019s complex and unique approach to pricing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a typical project is, say, equipping a hospital,\u201d Rengaswamy explained, \u201cquoting is multidimensional and hugely complex. Cost-based pricing changes regularly depending on the volume of the product and other factors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salesforce partner, Smaartt Digital, helped Gulf Drug design the right object model and drafted the requirements for the implementation of Sales Cloud to help solve the complexity in cost-based pricing and quotes. \u201cSmaartt Digital understood our processes and the complexity aligning with all the department heads, and they architected an integrated and highly scalable solution meeting multiple departments and business units,\u201d Rengaswamy said. \u201cThey took our requirements and mapped the Salesforce solutions and value additions to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Changing the quoting process was a high-priority requirement. One of the company\u2019s recent projects, equipping a hospital, involved 3,000 product lines that had to be\u00a0individually configured\u00a0into the previous system by a solution engineer.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeams have to check the pricing and factors like overhead charges, warranty details and transportation,\u201d Singh said. \u201cSalesforce helped us to create a customized system that speeds up this process using a high-code solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the new sales platform was first implemented, it was piloted first in the medical equipment department, which has long, complex sales cycles and complicated pricing processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe product values are high, and the decision-making processes are more difficult,\u201d Rengaswamy said. \u201cWe knew if Salesforce could meet the challenges in this department, it would be successful elsewhere \u2013 and it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

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“Salesforce helped us to create a customized system that speeds up this process using a high-code solution.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Bhanupriya Singh, Salesforce Consultant, Gulf Drug<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Increase collaboration with smarter dashboards and reporting:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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In healthcare, the tendering process is so long it can take up to\u00a0two years\u00a0for a deal to complete. This means regular check-ins on progress, as well as keeping track of every opportunity across the company, is essential.<\/p>\n

Every week, Gulf Drug\u2019s sales representatives have a business review meeting, where they discuss leads and opportunities across multiple departments. \u201cWith Sales Cloud, everything is displayed on a shared dashboard and people can see what they need on their home screen the minute they turn on their device,\u201d said Rengaswamy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSalesforce has been a real paradigm shift. People can now send up-to-date information instantly and work remotely, moving straight onto their next customer. And we can do any level of analysis we need with these dashboards.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the pharmaceuticals department, this was particularly important, because they need features that\u00a0allow for extensive reporting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to know how much of the customer base each team is covering based on customer segmentation,\u201d Singh said. \u201cThat way they can identify priorities and ensure the right customers are being visited the appropriate number of times a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, salespeople can easily measure performance while logging all their activities on time, as much of the data is filled in automatically.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cSalesforce lets salespeople enter the minimum amount of data while providing the maximum analysis of results.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Aravind Rengaswamy, CFO & CIO, Gulf Drug<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Align business units and centralize decision making:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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The next phase of Gulf Drug\u2019s process transformation will make sure everyone across the organisation has access to all the information they need in one place.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything in our business review meetings used to be presented manually in Word and Excel,\u201d Singh said. \u201cWe realised that whatever is happening outside the system needs to go inside the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using Quip for\u00a0real-time collaborative documents and chat<\/a>\u00a0means information goes beyond just sales. For example, inventory and financials have been centralised and made available to everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, all our supply chain, sales and financial information is in one place,\u201d Singh said. \u201cThis doesn\u2019t just help our sales team collaborate, but streamlines collaboration across the\u00a0whole\u00a0business.<\/p>\n

\u201cCustomising our system to align our business processes is just the first step. We\u2019ve already seen improvements in time management, revenue, and customer satisfaction. In the future, we\u2019ll roll out this way of working across the whole group.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cEvery salesperson wants to log in and see on their dashboard what they\u2019ve done for the quarter, the week, or the day,\u201d said Rengaswamy. \u201cHaving\u00a0a 360 overview<\/a>\u00a0of past performance and the current sales numbers and pipeline visible in Salesforce is a big win for management. It helps to give a better understanding of company growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using Salesforce, Gulf Drug has turned its sales cycles from complex to collaborative. Now that the manual processes have been automated with swift actions that unite the whole business, success is much easier to come by.<\/p>\n

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“Having a 360 overview of past performance and the current sales numbers and pipeline visible in Salesforce is a big win for management. It helps to give a better understanding of company growth.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Aravind Rengaswamy, CFO & CIO, Gulf Drug<\/p>\n

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Implemented by Smaartt<\/div>\n
Published by Salesforce<\/div>\n
Reference : https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/eu\/resources\/customer-stories\/gulf-drug\/<\/div>\n
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Learn how this pharmaceutical company is cracking sales at speed thanks to a customised platform: UAE healthcare company\u00a0Gulf Drug\u00a0works in a complex industry with long sales cycles across disparate departments. Sales reps work with a huge product portfolio, and on projects that range from equipping hospitals to implementing new medical devices. Which makes getting the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6507,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,528],"tags":[280,11],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6508,"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3325\/revisions\/6508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smaartt.com\/knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}