Mexico to do much more than follow a paper trail of yellow
squares. It requires looking for cost-effective ways to address
common business questions, such as “how do you parse out
customer information in a way that helps sales and marketing hone in on a particular segment?” or “how do you remain
focused on building the research-and-development pipeline
while maintaining an expansive enterprise system?”
3M’s Mexico-based subsidiary, which has been operating since 1947, focuses on six main industries: industrial
and transportation, telecommunications, consumer products,
healthcare, display and graphics, and safety and security. Due
in part to the area’s population density, the medical and dental
markets are sources for substantial profits for the company.
They are also among the trickier markets to serve. Doctors and
dentists make up a precise and discerning community, and
keeping them satisfied and loyal to 3M products requires a lot
of personal attention from field sales.
“If you approach this type of science-minded target market
and you don’t fulfill customer expectations, the customers lose
faith in your ability to deliver and their loyalty diminishes,” says
José A. Díaz, corporate marketing and strategic planning director, 3M Mexico. “To be effective, we absolutely have to ‘walk
the talk’: meet expectations in the right place, at the right time,
and at the right cost.” According to Díaz, doctors and dentists
are always eager to learn more about 3M solutions, because they
know the commitment the company has to making their professional lives easier, more efficient, and more successful.
With those criteria in place as a benchmark, 3M analyzed
GoldMine.com, Salesforce.com, and Oracle CRM On Demand
(formerly Oracle’s Siebel CRM On Demand). It found that
Oracle’s offering was ranked highest by far in the category
of profit analysis. It also put the three vendors to the test by
selecting two very divergent business divisions—healthcare
and electrical—and mapping the divisions’ disparate business
processes to the software. Díaz says that when the company
compared the business process mapping with the software
functionality, Oracle CRM On Demand again ranked highest.
“Overall, when comparing what the software could do alongside our specific business needs, then factoring in 3M’s vision of
serving these different markets, Oracle CRM On Demand offered
the most efficient and cost-effective solution,” emphasizes Díaz.
DRIVING PROFITS IN A TRAFFIC JAM
It’s very important to the company that 3M’s salespeople avoid
wasting valuable time stuck in grinding traffic jams. “Speed,
effectiveness, and resource optimization are three of our greatest challenges,” Díaz says. “We wanted to increase profitability
by more effectively managing how the sales team managed
their time, but we wanted to avoid the high cost of purchasing
and maintaining software by implementing a system that could
be used and maintained remotely.”
As 3M began analyzing the on-demand CRM solutions available in the marketplace, management
set a variety of criteria, including system
flexibility and the vendor’s overall breadth
and depth of industry experience. The
company also focused on identifying a
software solution that was powerful in
terms of connectivity and database functionality. “We wanted solid evidence that
our potential CRM partner had a good
understanding of our business needs, our
business drivers, and our unique market
verticality,” says Díaz.
POWER IN NUMBERS
Achieving a clear vision of sales-representative performance was
a critical objective for the company. On a daily basis, some 3M
sales reps were visiting a small number of doctors, while other
representatives were able to visit as many as 15 doctors in the
same time period. Some representatives were closing 5 or 6
deals a day while others were closing as many as 15. Without
daily insight into each salesperson’s plan, managers could not
make quick assessments, formulate new strategies, and communicate them to sales representatives who were either underper-forming or not managing their time effectively.
“We have great variety among our sales reps, which is good,”
says Díaz, “but none of the experience, the data, activities in
the field—none of that information was available in any kind
of central repository.” Marketing and management was, as Díaz
describes it, driving blind as they attempted to devise strategies
or promotions. “The process of envisioning our business strategy
for the next five or ten years was guesswork at best because we
didn’t have any updated information. Everything was tucked
away in the reps’ notebooks.”
With an automated CRM approach, gone are the days of
3M marketing personnel interrupting sales reps with repeated
phone calls asking, “How are you doing?” or “How can I help
you close more deals?” Instead, sales
reps are being assisted and directed, on
a weekly basis, with information that is
based on results coming back from the
field. “We now have true sales and mar-
keting visibility, and that means we have
the data we need to support our strate-
gies,” says Díaz. This information helps
marketing understand specifics such
as what kinds of doctors use a certain
product, or how well a promotion is
doing. “Oracle CRM On Demand pro-
>>SNAPSHOT
3M Mexico
www.3m.com.mx
Founded: 1947
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Revenue: US$450 million
Employees: More than 3,500
Oracle products: Oracle CRM On
Demand and Siebel Analytics
