Because the design is based on an understanding of the situation your salesmen meet in their daily routines. This will lead to the fact that they will actually use the system. Which again means that the system will have loads of valuable information available for you.

Do I have to use the system myself?

Preferably, and for several reasons:

• It is your shortcut always to be on top of things and updated with the various cases. And this will make it possible for you to take immediate action whenever your help is needed.
• If you are a "playing coach", you will use the system to manage your own sale.
• It will earn you respect. I a lot of sales companies, the sales manager is reckoned as somebody who is collecting numbers every Friday. An active CRM system will help you to be on top of things and thus it will ensure that the salesmen does not look at the system as a "reporting system in disguise"
•  .... and last, but not least, CASH will give you more time and make it possible for you to take action creatively and alternatively whenever it is needed.

Using CASH, will that make it possible for everybody to see what we all are doing?

That depends on the way you set up the system. In some companies, it is an advantage that everybody knows everything. In other companies it is a "no can do". You can set up the system using structures ensuring that only relevant and useful information is available. I.e., you may see reports on sales calls for everybody, but the salesmen can only see their own.   ?

What about the salesmen who does not want to use the system?

It is very likely that at least one out of 10 salesmen in a company does not want to share knowledge with the rest of the team, or does not want to be watched. There might be several reasons for this, but none of these will be beneficial to you or your company. Therefore, you will have to find out whether the salesman is unhappy with something else or whether it is due to lack of confidence in you as a person, or whether it simply just is caused by the fact that this specific person only wants to cover his laziness! The solution to this is depending on the cause, but if you discuss it up front, it is usually very easy to handle.

What do we do with our existing forecast system? 

There is only a simple answer to this: Throw it away! With CASH you will always have an updated forecast. If need be, you may format the CASH forecast and give it the same layout as the old one has. Or you may export the CASH forecast to Excel or whatever your management prefers. By the way, have you ever had a situation where your manager has asked for an updated forecast to be ready in 10 minutes? Usually, you rush around pressing your salesmen for a quick forecast. Some of the salesmen may not even be present, and the impression your manager gets out of this is that you are not on top of things at all. This situation will not arise with CASH implemented in your organization!

Will I have to employ a DBA, if I choose CASH?
No, Interbase is very easy to use. (As a matter of curiosity, alone in Denmark, you will find around 50.000 installations of Interbase, as it is used in several home banking applications.) Only administration of Interbase needed is back-up, which you can handle, using a simple file-based back-up.
What if I have a Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase, Ingres or DB2 expert beforehand?
He or she will be able to learn Interbase in half an hour!

Is CASH certified?
Many CRM solutions have stamps showing they have been certified by one or more of the large ERP vendors. We in ChannelCRM have not spent money on these kind of certifications  and they are not necessary either, from a technical point of view. During our respective carriers, we have sold many certified solutions and it is our experience that these certification co-operations between vendors only is made for marketing issues. Meaning that you, as a customer, really will not gain anything from this.  Having said this however, you may find situations where 2 products really are integrated - by process to process calls or by direct database access - and this may seem desirable from a technical standpoint.
We try to avoid these kind of links as the customers, to the best of our knowledge, often ends up in a situation where for example - the ERP system cannot be upgraded until the CRM vendor is ready with the next release! If you still want certifications, go to your vendor and ask for a guarantee (and a penalty) that such a situation will not arise.

What does it take to run CASH.  How many resources does it use?
Not much. If MS- Office can run on a client pc or server, CASH will be able to run on those as well. This applies to installations with up to 20 current users active. Are we talking about larger installations, it will be an advantage to dedicate a pc as database server. Usually it will also be an advantage to avoid interference between the file server and the database server.

Can you run CASH over the internet?
Yes. Preferably through VPN (Virtual Private Network). You will not have to invest in any licenses others than those available in a standard Microsoft installation, but it will take a technically competent person to set it up. VPN guarantees that noone is eavesdropping your communication. The system can run on a dial-up modem connection (56K), because we are using intelligent data caching, but of course a higher speed is preferred.

Yes, in a way you are right. But we have designed the system focusing on functions helping you in your daily routines. And using CASH, you will not have to use other reporting systems! By the way, you can also look at reporting from another angle: With CASH you will always have an updated forecast including all your sales activities! This will of course give your manager an opportunity always to be updated but it will also put a pressure on him as he is responsible for assisting you whenever it is needed or whenever cases are being postponed.  In other words, he is also to blame if a case fails. No more sales meetings with "spanking".

Is it hard work to update CASH?

No, it will make your life easier. Think about it. No more writing letters, no more searching for old correspondence, no more last minute reports to complete, no more searching for history on old customer cases, no more (often embarrassing) meetings with customers in order to find out what your predecessors have actually said and done to the customer and so on and so forth. And finally, you will not miss any meetings nor forget about any sales case which could have meant a lot to you and your company.

Will it be possible for me to use the system from home?

Yes in several ways. The system has a central database, in which all the relevant customer information is saved. Therefore you have several opportunities, when you work at home:

1. You can connect to the company server either through the internet or using VPN
2. You can use MS-Outlook. (CASH has a two-way synchronization to MS-Outlook).
3. You can use a Palm Pilot/PocketPC. (With synchronization)

Finally, it will also be possible for you to print "phone-lists" and activity reports, and thus work with paper when you are not in the office. Not very trendy maybe, but some people do prefer working with the pc turned off.

What's in it for me?

• You sell more! 
  Using CASH, you will start working even more focused and efficient. And just that will make you sell more! No missed opportunities because you are too busy, you will always have a report or an overview, helping you to prioritize you time and effort and you will be able to ensure that you continue to have opportunities down through the entire pipeline.
• You will earn more money!
  No rocket science! You earn more, if you sell more, if you are paid on commission. However, if this is not the case, we are convinced that you will be honored in other ways, when you are showing good results.
• You will sleep better at night!
  Most salesmen knows what it is like to be off track and behind. This could be with regards to the actual budget and it might also be compared to the result which is expected from you by the management. CASH gives you a survey of your sales  situation, which again will keep you stress factor low and in the end, will help you sleep better!
• People will recognize you as a professional salesman, and a salesman who always keep a a promise!
  Customers respect you, when you always stick to an appointment. That you always call back when you have promised to do so and that you present your offers on time and before deadline. To make it short: The customers will respect you more if  you always fulfill the expectations, you have promised. And CASH will help you do that!
• You will keep your manager up to scratch!
  He/She can no longer say: "You should have told me long ago!" or "I want an updated forecast now on at least this or that amount. You got to work with your numbers!" CASH will show exactly the history of each and every sales case and it is up to the sales manager to keep track on things up front.

Yes, by all means! Often, consultants and technicians have a much closer contact with the customers than the salesmen do. And with all the knowledge the consultants have about the given organization, needs etc., they often become a very valuable resource in the sales cycle. Provided it is being coordinated of course. CASH will make this coordination possible. With CASH it will be possible for the consultants to know what the salesmen are working on, and are planning to work on. And vice versa. It will be possible for the salesmen to follow up on the needs, which are uncovered by the consultants.

? What about forecasting??

As a matter of fact, forecasting is more relevant to you as a Consulting Manager than it is to the Sales Manager.  This might sound strange but: The success of you and your department is very much dependent on the actual sale. It is therefore very important for you to know the sales expectations in depths. If they are too optimistic, you will end up with too many resources. Are they too pessimistic, you will end up with too few people! And both situations are unacceptable as it will hurt the relations to the customers as well as the final result of the company. With CASH it will be possible for you to tie information about the need for human resources - with the various profiles - necessary for the various solutions. This will make it possible for you to see a forecast showing your need for human resources at any given time.

Yes indeed. We do not think you can separate marketing and sales. Sales is dependent on good and efficient marketing. And marketing, on the contrary, will only be really focused and customer related if the correct and updated customer information is available. And that is only possible if the sales force is updating the information on an ongoing basis.
CASH is therefore designed as an integrated Sales and Marketing solution. I.e. you may have marketing campaigns including activities for the sales force to take action on, and you may have milestones in a campaign, which automatically triggers tasks for the salesmen to do. As a matter of fact, CASH may build a bridge between marketing and sales.

It is a must for us to have very detailed information available about our customers. Will CASH be able to fulfill this requirement?

Yes, there are no restrictions whatsoever. There is even a number of facilities in CASH, which most probably will ensure that the salesmen actually ?remembers? to register all the information they have available. A large amount of data is not a problem either. As an example we have customers with data on more then 480.000 companies!

Our Campaigns are often focused on cross selling.  Is that supported by CASH?

Yes again. The system is created in a way making it possible for you to design campaigns in which you may select the target group on either each and every criteria or a combination of criteria. Other areas for you to build your campaigns on are:  Topography, purchase history, sales relations and/or even pieces of information you import from other databases.

 CASH will give you advantages in 3 different areas:

• You will protect maybe the most valuable asset of your company: The  knowledge of your customers.
• You will have a top-tuned sales unit.
• You will be on top of things ? always knowing the exact state of your  business ? and the reason for success ? and failures.

Do I have to be involved  

Not necessarily. But it will  have a positive effect on the rest of the organization as they will  use the system with more enthusiasm if the management leads the way.

Our parent company has planned to implement CRM globally!

Well, almost all big companies have. But it takes  time. In fact several years! And the question is: Can you afford to wait  for such an efficient tool? On top of this, experience tells us that  most of the ?global CRM implementations? will fail or will be  stopped long before they reach their subsidiaries around the world.
If you are in a position where your parent  company has made such a strategic CRM decision, and you, on the other  hand, need a tactical operational solution ? here and now ? CASH  from ChannelCRM is the solution. You can present this to your parent  company, as a tactical, interim solution, to help you out while waiting  for the global solution to be implemented. And emphasize the fact that  all data are open and can easily be   integrated in the future solution when it is available and ready.  And the investment is very low! You may even implement ChannelCRM on a  lease basis. No bindings! This really makes the investment  insignificant!

As a member of the board, it is your responsibility to be consultative, look after the company and ensure it is in good health. A CRM system is perfect for this! In an effective CRM system you will be able to follow the individual customer?s habits, see how their pattern develops, be up to date on the order book and backlog, follow the expected development and last but not least you will be able to see whether the various processes are developing in a positive or negative direction. In order to get this kind of information without a CRM system, you will have to look at historical data (invoices), and you will have to listen to the subjective explanations from  management. And this is often the reason why you often find that Members of the Board are 3-6 months behind the actual situation of the company. You will not have to learn the CASH yourself even if it is very easy. All you need to do is to sit down together with somebody from the management and a connected PC. And then ask all the tricky questions.