Government Agency: Arlington Economic Development

Solution or Platform Selected: Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition

1. The Government agency's challenge that led to the Cloud or SaaS adoption.
   * Arlington Economic Development (AED) needed a CRM solution to enhance Arlington County's services to area businesses, real estate developers, and tourism interests * After attempting to share contacts on a custom system, the company realized it needed a more robust solution to manage business and sales processes and communications flow across all 4 organizational units * As a public sector organization, AED didn't fit the traditional sales paradigm and therefore needed to be able to customize its CRM solution to suit diverse businesses * A large-scale relocation initiative called for a CRM offering that would seamlessly integrate with existing business processes



2. The solution that was chosen and why that particular solution was selected.
   * After completing a six-month pilot with a competing CRM offering, AED found the strain on its technical staff too intense and the cost and learning curve too steep; Salesforce CRM became the clear choice * Implemented in three months, Salesforce CRM offered AED a customizable, cost-effective solution that was so simple to use that business users rather than overburdened IT resources could administer it * The company used Force.com to implement custom tabs for managing and tracking prospects, companies, and vendors and to create applications for the company's real estate development and internal communications groups * Inspired by a Force.com AppExchange app, AED also created a custom project-management application to streamline its operations companywide * The company successfully integrated Salesforce CRM with Microsoft Outlook contacts, calendaring, and business cases for simple information access



3. Results of the implementation. How did the vendor meet the agency's needs?
   * Optimized communications across all 4 organizational units synergize company efforts * The new project management application saves significant time and resources * Access to comprehensive, intelligent information increases quality of service * Customized terminology encourages quick and easy adoption among diverse users * With all of the customer information now available in Salesforce CRM, AED no longer needs to rely on in-office staff to coordinate projects and meetings; employees in the field have direct access to the information they need * Less reliance on technical staff lowers IT costs and streamlines projects Contact For Arlington Economic Development Mike Goodrich Director of Administration Arlington Economic Development (703) 228-0821 mgoodrich@arlingtonva.us