We had the great privilege to work with leading publishing company Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. to transform the way it tracks and analyzes its business data. Using Skuid, they created a completely bespoke app around the unique processes and specific business needs of their company. Read the full case study below or download the PDF here.
Overview
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. transformed the way it tracks and analyzes its business data by creating a bespoke user experience with Skuid. Rather than investing significant time and money to customize their Salesforce application with code, the company’s Salesforce.com Manager built a truly bespoke app around the unique processes and specific business needs of his co-workers in just four months.
Challenge
Erik Wahlberg is Salesforce.com Manager at Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., a leading scientific, technical, engineering, and medical publishing company. Journals published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. play a critical role in advancing scientific and medical research worldwide in both established and emerging fields such as gene therapy, tissue engineering, big data, neuroscience, HIV/AIDS, and clinical patient care.
Erik was charged with ensuring full implementation of Salesforce® across all sales teams (subscription, advertising, and special sales), but quickly realized that the standard application was not well suited to the unique requirements of these diverse teams.
The company had invested in Salesforce® Sales Cloud to manage all of their data and processes, but company employees resisted using the platform and struggled to find and display the right data they needed to make sound, real-time business decisions.
“In native Salesforce, our employees would have to constantly refresh dashboards to display accurate and timely data,” says Erik. He realized that Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. needed a more user-friendly, made-to-order system to efficiently manage its customer relationships.
Solution
Erik knew he needed a fast solution in order to substantiate the company’s significant investment in Salesforce. After several weeks of trying to build a solution with code, Erik realized it would take several months of dedicated effort to achieve the goal, so he sought out other possible options. Erik participated in a demo of Skuid and recognized that it enabled precisely the customization his team was seeking. With Skuid, Erik could address all the issues he had with native Salesforce and move from generic to bespoke without writing code. The company decided to leverage Skuid to make it all happen.
Results
In just four months, Erik built a truly bespoke application to run Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.’s business. By using pre-built Skuid page templates, Erik created a practical, functional application within the very tight timeframe his business demanded.
Erik was also able to adapt the newly “Skuidified” Salesforce application to fit the exact needs and feedback of his fellow employees. The app lowered the average number of clicks per task from 16 to four, creating a much more efficient user experience.
“Skuid has streamlined the way we do things now,” Erik says. “It allowed us to create a better product than we could have ever imagined.”
Instead of being limited to sending out only monthly reports, Erik and his team can now generate and review real-time dashboards and reporting packages, drilling down on any number of variables. Thanks to individualized custom homepages, sales reps are able to see all of the data they need in one place and company management has full transparency as well.
The company saved considerable time and money by electing to Skuid for its custom interface rather than devoting staff time or hiring an outside development team to make it happen. Using Skuid decreased the company’s implementation time, eliminated hours they would have spent on training, and dramatically reduced its Visualforce and Apex code debt. Most importantly, every sales team is now fully using the system and, on average, employees are performing 170% more efficiently.
Let’s put it this way, Skuid was not just a timesaver but a lifesaver. Skuid allowed us to create a better product than we could have ever imagined.
