Joining a new company as a Salesforce Administrator can be fun – and scary. What kind of things are you inheriting in your new company’s org? How can you bring some quick wins to your new users? What laundry list of improvements does your new management have for you, and how fast do they expect those to get done? James Garfield, Salesforce MVP and Salesforce Analyst at Agendia tells us about his experience, and how Geopointe made a big difference for him.
Take a step back and put yourself in my shoes for a second. It’s the start of a new year, new opportunities, but scariest and most exciting of all… a new job. I had recently accepted a position as a Salesforce Analyst (a hybrid of IT, Finance, & Operations) with Agendia, Inc., a breast cancer diagnostic lab in sunny Orange County. Walking in the door the first day, expectations were high, and with all things Salesforce, they wanted quick wins.
Within a couple of weeks, the call came in that we would be doubling our sales team. With this request came the tedious task of figuring out where to place these soon-to-be-hired sales people. My boss immediately came to me puzzled and asked me what we could do. Prior to my arrival, Agendia had made use of MapPoint to draw territories and spit out zip codes of the subsequent areas for account maintenance and alignment. Upon processing what my boss had asked, bells and whistles were going off in my head… I had remembered an app that I discovered on the AppExchange for Salesforce.com – GEOPOINTE!!
After doing a little bit of research and reaching out to the Geopointe team, they set me up with a trial edition and even spent the time to walk me through how to use everything. I quickly learned the basics, and as my excitement grew, I thought to myself, “what more than just addresses and geotags would help me in creating custom fit territories for new and pre-existing sales representatives?” That’s where SpatialKey made its triumphant entrance! After reaching out to Arrowpointe and receiving immediate help, I was able to incorporate different objects that we utilize to track things like market share, ordering volume, champion customers, quota & forecast data all into a single intuitive and highly customizable interface.
The efficiency that Geopointe and SpatialKey provided me was astounding. Within just a few days, I was able to craft custom regions and territories based on data that already existed in Salesforce, making my job significantly easier than using MapPoint would have. Another benefit that I experienced with the duo was the ability to analyze the data that was built into the map. Seeing a territory’s trend and month-over-month growth was spectacular. We were able to see a map of our US operations and see which territories were experiencing growth above a certain parameter that we established. Upon presenting my proposal, management’s jaws were on the floor. A newly hired employee was able to accomplish something that other software couldn’t (especially in the course of a week or two)!
Geopointe and SpatialKey are a must for any organization that needs to perform detailed spatial analysis. Exercises such as the one I mentioned only begin to scrape the surface of the capabilities of Geopointe and SpatialKey. The cost of the service is dwarfed by the time saved and the insight gained into our own business. It helped us identify underserved areas of the country and also realign sales representatives where needed. Geopointe has allowed for me to check a project off of the board in record time and will continue to be used for years to come! As cliche as it may seem, the only thing I regret was not subscribing to the service sooner!
The mission of Agendia is to improve the quality of life for cancer patients, through molecular diagnostics, one patient at a time. James Garfield is a Salesforce MVP and an analyst at Agendia. On weekends, you can find him biking or running. You can find him on Twitter @James__Garfield and on LinkedIn.
