USA Today Chooses Salesforce.com For CRM

Adding to its existing portfolio of media customers, Salesforce.com, the San Francisco, Calif.-based provider of online customer relationship management (CRM) applications, announced today that national newspaper USA Today, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. , will use saleforce.com for its international CRM needs.

With a circulation of approximately 2.3 million and availability in 60 countries, USA Today has deployed the solution to its staff headquarters in Virginia and to international offices in order that account information can be shared instantly between its global account teams and management.

Beginning a pilot project with Salesforce.com in April 2001, USA Today is now rolling out the CRM solution to its internal sales force in Virginia, having cut short the pilot to deploy the application to employees in its Washington, New York and London offices.

“Salesforce.com enables our dispersed sales team to easily collaborate on important accounts, no matter if they are dialing in from New York, London or our home office in Virginia,” says Bruce Dewar, VP of Advertising Operations at USA Today.

“With Salesforce.com’s subscription-based approach, we don’t have a big upfront expenditure and then months of lag time until results. We simply buy what we need when we need it, with tangible benefits following almost immediately.”

“USA Today’s reliance on smooth communication between its dispersed global sales teams makes it a perfect fit with salesfore.com’s Web-based CRM solution,” says Marc Benioff, salesforce.com’s chairman.

He argues that the solution will enhance the newspaper’s collaboration on its global accounts, and provide the flexibility of adding new users at any location while avoiding hardware and consulting costs.

Benioff also believes that media companies are one of the firm’s stronger customer verticals for new business, existing customers include Dow Jones Newswires and Time Warner Communications.

But he says Salesforce.com is also seeing strong adoption of its CRM application in other areas including; high tech, financial services, business services and manufacturing.