INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Customer Perspective: When CRM Isn't Enough

May 31, 2006

One of the world's leading biotechnology companies, Serono International focuses on three core therapeutics areas: reproductive health, growth and metabolism, and multiple sclerosis. The company has 4,300 employees located in 45 countries and sales in over 100 countries worldwide. The Serono Biotech Center in Switzerland is one of the largest and most advanced technology production facilities in the world.

The need to maximize relationships

Officials within the marketing organization at Serono realized they needed to harmonize customer profiling and analysis worldwide and began developing a Key Account Management (KAM) project. Its goal was to enable Serono's sales force to access complete customer information, which would help them set objectives and plan activities that maximize their relationships with key accounts.

The company wanted to develop management reports using customer information captured in Siebel ePharma. After using Cognos for several years to deploy advanced reporting for Financial, HR (Oracle), and Clinical (Clinarium) applications, Serono again chose Cognos for its CRM project.

"There are two parts of the program," says Giulio Vannini, Director of Marketing & Sales e-Solutions at Serono. "Siebel as the platform for CRM applications and Cognos for reporting."

Defining IT and business needs

Serono looked to longtime technology partner Integrated Solutions of Geneva to develop the project. Integrated Solutions worked with Serono's IT and business specialists to define the company's reporting needs. Then, Integrated Solutions specialists worked on the underlying Siebel data to define the database views and create a fully customized reporting environment that encompasses more than 1,000 reporting items and a series of reports that sales managers use to help them better understand customer needs.

"Our sales representatives will use Cognos applications," says Mr. Vannini. "They have contact with doctors, hospitals, and research institutes. Having access to online reports and analysis will help them during their discussions and negotiations with our customers."

Significant sales increases

Serono has realized the first version of its customized environment to its sales management team and intends to extend the implementation to the field force. Sales managers can now see a customer's entire profile via the Serono intranet and use Cognos reporting to forecast and analyze the potential value of each customer "The Cognos reporting aspect is intended to maximize the value of the information we collect," says Mr. Vannini.

Harmonizing customer information gives Serono sales managers a key strategic overview of their customer base and will help further strengthen customer relationships. "By understanding more about our customers, we can devise a strategy that ensures the customers receive excellent service," says Mr. Vannini. "As a result, we expect significant sales increases will be generated by our key account management process and system during the next three years."