X

Almaviva TSF, Italy’s leading system integrator in the Transport & Logistics industry, aimed to implement a new infrastructure to offer data center as a service. The goal was to streamline the use of IT resources to gain a competitive advantage and reach new target audiences. The challenge was to enhance flexibility, both internally and towards customers. The new infrastructure needed to effectively protect the individual computing 'cells' offered to customers, separate and protect the shared computing resources, support a mixed virtual/physical infrastructure, enable the highest data throughput in a high-performance, 10 Gigabit environment, and allow for a single console, easy centralized management.

SF Police Credit Union (SFPCU), a financial institution serving over 34,000 members and managing over $760 million in assets, faced significant challenges in meeting government and industry standards for regulatory compliance, improving security to safeguard company and member data, and streamlining management to control costs. The organization's existing firewall, which had been in place for a decade, was found to have major compliance issues during an internal audit. The legacy firewall lacked a robust reporting system and offered no management transparency, making it difficult to generate security posture reports. SFPCU needed an upgraded security solution that could provide improved support for compliance audits, comprehensive protection against external threats and internal issues, and simplified management.

Independence Care System (ICS), a nonprofit Medicaid managed long-term healthcare plan serving residents in the New York City area, faced several challenges. The organization needed to improve its security to meet strict HIPAA compliance requirements, maximize business continuity to keep core healthcare applications up and running, and simplify network management to help staff stay productive. ICS was seeking a complete security solution that would simplify regulatory compliance, and protect the organization against security threats that could impact network performance. The solution would have to be easy to expand and modify to meet changing needs, and provide centralized management to simplify and streamline network administration for the firm’s IT staff.

The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) is a bustling hub that hosts over 1100 events annually, including meetings, conventions, exhibitions, concerts, tradeshows, and gala dinners. With a wide range of in-house technology across lighting, audio, vision, and IT, MCEC aims to create memorable experiences for event attendees. However, the Centre faced a significant challenge in providing reliable public wireless Internet service to thousands of visitors daily. MCEC needed to maintain control over content and applications, protect users, and support client demand for free wireless connectivity for up to 10,000 devices. The Centre required a solution that would enable thousands of users to access the network concurrently, ensure maximum network security, allow flexibility and management of data access and applications, ensure zero downtime, and provide maximum throughput with no user usage impact.

Courtagen Life Sciences, a leader in genomic services, relies heavily on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for its network and communications infrastructure. This cloud-based solution offers agility, cost savings, scalability, and support for users worldwide. However, to be successful, the solution must also provide comprehensive security and support regulatory compliance. Courtagen required a security solution that would work smoothly with its cloud environment and provide comprehensive protection against network attacks and data breaches, agility and flexibility to support changing needs, and simple management. The solution also needed to comply with HIPAA and other security regulations and requirements, seamlessly integrate with AWS, support secure access by mobile employees, and be scalable to support additional users.

RNnetwork, a travel nursing staffing company based in Boca Raton, Florida, was facing a significant challenge with their speed to market for VMS jobs. The company's business was primarily built on VMS roles, and in a high-demand market, speed to market became a crucial factor. Jobs were opening and closing more quickly than RNnetwork had previously experienced, and the urgency to get profiles out the door and jobs posted internally increased. The company was relying on time-consuming, manual processes for VMS jobs, which was untenable in the fast-paced market. The manual process was not only slow but also prone to errors, which could potentially harm the company's reputation and business.

SelecSource, a North American staffing firm, was facing significant challenges with their payroll system. The firm was manually reconciling timesheet data from a variety of client timekeeping systems, a process that was not only time-consuming but also prone to errors. The firm struggled with illegible timesheets, incomplete spreadsheets, and unverified employee attendance. These issues often resulted in employees being left unpaid, paid short, or receiving late paychecks. The lack of an automated system made it impossible to verify an employee's attendance, putting the firm in a difficult position. Furthermore, these payroll errors often resulted in late payroll, which could damage relationships with clients.

Meridian Technologies, an IT staffing firm, was facing a significant challenge in adopting text messaging company-wide. The recruiters were using their personal cell phones to text with prospects and candidates, which resulted in great response rates over email and phone outreach. However, not all recruiters were comfortable using their personal devices for this purpose. Furthermore, the BYOD (bring-your-own-device) model that the firm was using provided no insight into the quality, frequency, and efficacy of text outreach, leaving a significant gap in their analytics. The firm was also dissatisfied with the bundled or BYOD texting solutions and the stripped-down capabilities of the texting bundled with their tech suite.

Venturi, a leading IT recruitment specialist, was facing challenges in improving its recruiters’ workflows and reducing time spent on administration to increase placements. The company also wanted to provide its recruiters with better visibility of their performance against sales and recruitment targets. This required a solution that could provide accurate, real-time business intelligence. Furthermore, the solution had to be easily scalable and incur low operational expenditure. Venturi’s staff across offices in London, Manchester, and Amsterdam needed a system that could seamlessly integrate into their existing workflow.

eHire, a staffing and recruiting firm based in Atlanta, Georgia, was in search of an integrated solution that could provide real-time insights into working hours, commissions, and other gross margin metrics. The firm wanted a system that could be leveraged by their account managers to understand their financial impact on the business and for management to hold individuals accountable for their performance. The existing system was manual, time-consuming, and lacked inclusivity. Reports for the account management team took several weeks to pull and did not provide a comprehensive view. eHire needed a solution that would serve as a single source of truth, providing critical information to help the team focus on the most profitable jobs to increase gross margin and overall profitability.

Soni Resources Group, a professional services company based in the US, was facing several challenges that led them to seek a solution in Bullhorn Automation. The primary issues included the need to reduce administrative work and increase productivity, a lack of visibility into candidate communications, and the desire to improve both the candidate and client experience. They were also looking to increase redeployment rates and efficiently acquire new candidates and clients. Before settling on Bullhorn, Soni Resources Group evaluated other competitors such as Sense, Hubspot, and MailChimp.

Voca, a leading relationship organization based in Rochester, MN, was facing significant challenges with their existing Applicant Tracking System (ATS) provider. With over 20 recruiters and 1 million candidates in their database, Voca needed an efficient ATS platform to support their growth and expansion into the healthcare industry. However, their existing provider was not meeting their expectations due to three major issues. Firstly, the platform was too expensive for the services it provided, costing $170 per seat and requiring additional costs for add-ons, resulting in an extra $20,000 per year in software costs. Secondly, the customer service was unresponsive, failing to address any of Voca's service tickets over six years. Lastly, the platform was not modernizing quickly enough to keep up with the competition, resulting in slower innovations that did not meet Voca's needs.

Quality Staffing of America Inc., a staffing firm specializing in MSP programs for Fortune 500 companies, was facing several challenges with their existing Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Despite having a high conversion rate in the staffing industry, their ATS was working against them throughout the recruitment process. The system had a poor user interface and inefficient workflows, which significantly impacted productivity during busy seasons. The ATS was also underperforming and had subpar customer service, leaving many of the company's complaints unresolved. Additionally, the company was locked into a year-long contract with their ATS provider, preventing them from scaling their recruiting workforce based on demand. The provider also charged for every transaction in the system, adding up to $12,000 to their yearly bill. Lastly, the ATS provider charged for every VMS integration, which was a basic requirement for operating in the MSP space.

Business Technology Group (BTG), an independent IT consulting and staffing firm, was facing several challenges with their legacy Applicant Tracking System (ATS). The first issue was the high cost of the system, with a rigid one-year contract and additional charges for every extra integration. The second problem was the lack of comprehensive business analytics and data management. The system failed to provide internal metrics on company-wide productivity or generate reports based on the team's Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Moreover, all data updates had to be managed manually, which was time-consuming and hindered productivity. Lastly, the system lacked key feature capabilities such as seamless job board integrations and automatic candidate engagement & follow-up. The ATS only offered integration with one job board, limiting their talent pool, and its candidate engagement features lacked automation.

Zend Technologies, a leading provider of enterprise-grade PHP solutions, was facing a significant challenge in managing and leveraging their incoming leads. The popularity of PHP, with around seven million developers, resulted in a strong flow of new leads. However, Zend found it impossible to follow up with these leads constructively. Their initial solution, a traditional multi-modal multi-touch arrangement, proved impractical to implement and manage. The sales representatives were not able to make the required number of calls and emails, leading to inadequate coverage. Additionally, the quality of the leads varied greatly, ranging from students and hobbyists to large enterprises. This made it difficult to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' leads, especially when the information provided by the leads was not always accurate. Zend was in need of a solution that could effectively engage with all these leads without the need to hire additional sales development representatives.

Mercedes-Benz of Plano, a family-owned dealership in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, was struggling with a low email response rate of 23-24 percent, which was affecting their lead engagement. Despite having a large team of 40 sales associates, 18 service advisors, and 60 service technicians, the dealership found it challenging to maintain personalized, one-on-one communication with their growing client base. Their existing process involved the sales staff contacting new leads three times per day for five days, twice via phone and once via email. However, this approach was not yielding the desired results, with many potential clients reluctant to engage in phone conversations during their initial research phase. The dealership also discovered that the language used in their emails was triggering spam filters, further reducing their response rates.

Matt Ford, a family-owned dealership in Independence, MO, faced the challenge of improving communication with potential clients about the dealership while maintaining their award-winning customer service reputation. The dealership, run by brothers Ryan and Todd Matt, prides itself on its customer service, having received the Ford Lincoln Mercury’s President’s Award for outstanding customer service 19 times. Despite being a small-town dealership, Matt Ford handles a large clientele, with a team of six salespeople tasked with maintaining communication with 60 leads per month and closing on 1,200 sales per year. The challenge was to maintain this high level of service and communication with potential clients, without compromising on their quality of service.

KnowledgeVision, a company that is reinventing online business presentations, was facing a significant challenge in managing its inbound leads. Despite successfully generating a large number of leads, the company lacked the resources to effectively engage with them all. This resulted in a situation where Business Development Representatives (BDRs) had to selectively choose who to contact, leaving many potential customers unattended. This was a major concern for the company as each lead represented a potential sale and had cost money to acquire. The company had a database of 75,000 records in Marketo, indicating a strong ability to capture prospects, but a weak conversion rate to sales. The challenge was to find a way to engage with every single lead to determine their interest and potential for conversion.

KEMP Technologies, a leader in advanced Layer 2 – 7 Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) and application-centric load balancing, faced a significant challenge in managing its growing number of sales leads. As the company's success in the market grew, so did the complexity and time-consuming nature of lead management. The company found it increasingly difficult to engage and nurture web visitors to determine their interest and intent, optimize lead qualification via marketing automation, and increase ROI on lead acquisition. The challenge was further complicated by KEMP's global presence, which introduced geographic and seasonal hurdles. It became impractical to hire enough sales reps to cover raw leads in all regions over all peak periods. The company needed a solution to automate nurturing and engagement with web leads beyond simple one-to-one email.

The Los Angeles Film School, a private college offering career-focused programs in various fields, was facing a challenge in increasing inbound lead conversions. The school's marketing approach was predominantly via paid search and social, accounting for 85% of its leads, with the remainder filled by referrals or traditional media. The first attempts to reach out to a lead were made via phone call, with sales reps given seven attempts or seven days to make a touch before any automation was introduced. However, despite this approach being well received by prospective students, salespeople were only making an average of 1.6 touches per lead rather than seven. This resulted in an annual conversion rate of 2-3%, which the sales management believed could be improved. The school needed a way to have more persistent and consistent conversations with their prospective students.

BombBomb, a company that offers a subscription-based, easy-to-use, and low-cost video email platform, was facing a significant challenge in managing their leads. Their largest customer segment was in a highly seasonal industry, which resulted in a rollercoaster effect on their lead flow. Some months saw tremendous spikes in leads, while others saw deep valleys. This irregularity made it difficult to hire the right number of salespeople; hiring enough for the peaks would leave them idle during the valleys, wasting money, while hiring just for the valleys would result in missed leads during the peaks, wasting opportunities. The primary goal of their sales and marketing outreach was to elicit a firm 'yes' or a 'no' from prospects, but the reality of busy schedules and life interruptions often resulted in a 'maybe'.

Vern Fonk Insurance, an independent insurance brokerage based in Washington, USA, was facing the challenge of engaging and nurturing more Internet leads without the need to hire additional staff. The company had no after-hours sales group, which resulted in missed opportunities to capture and engage interested leads. Furthermore, the agency lacked a scalable process to convert aged leads and past customers who did not renew their policies. The company was also losing customers to competitors with online systems that facilitated overnight or after-hours purchases.

Spring Venture Group, a leading independent insurance brokerage based in Kansas City, MO, was seeking ways to enhance the efficiency of its sales teams and reduce the cost per lead acquisition. The company generates leads from various sources such as direct mail, demand generation campaigns, its websites, and by bidding on leads for purchase from third-party vendors. The vice president of marketing’s primary challenge was to determine the number of leads marketing needed to drive to sales to meet their goals without increasing the cost per acquisition (CPA). The company was already using sales automation solutions like Salesforce, but there was a need for a more efficient solution to manage the sales conversion process.

QuoteWizard, one of the largest independent, privately-held insurance lead providers in the United States, was faced with the challenge of increasing the quality of leads and engagement rates for its clients. The company generates high-quality insurance leads for thousands of U.S.-based agents working for leading insurance carriers. However, in the fall of 2013, QuoteWizard’s management began to explore new approaches to improving the quality of lead sources and in turn enabling their insurance agent clients to increase engagement rates. The company launched a pilot of Conversica’s sales conversion management solution to assist with an internal campaign to re-engage former clients to purchase again from QuoteWizard. Management also tested Conversica on the leads that QuoteWizard was procuring and selling to agents.

The Faulkner Organization, one of Pennsylvania's largest multi-franchise automobile dealerships, was struggling to manage the high volume of internet leads it received each month. The company's Internet Sales department was receiving nearly 6,500 leads per month from various sources, including third-party lead aggregators and Faulkner’s own multi-brand website. However, the department's appointment setters could only effectively handle a maximum of 150 leads each day, leading to potential sales opportunities being missed. Consequently, the company's engagement rate consistently hovered around 25 percent. The challenge was to increase lead engagement rates and ensure no potential sales opportunities were overlooked.

CenturyLink, a global communications and IT services company, was facing a challenge in increasing its outreach volume and improving lead flow. The company was particularly focused on 'warm leads', prospects who have shown interest and asked to be contacted. These leads could come from various sources such as the company's website, 1-800 numbers, outbound telemarketing, search engine marketing, and email campaigns. However, the company was struggling to effectively reach out to these leads, especially smaller prospects who did not have an assigned sales representative. The company also faced resistance from its sales representatives who were skeptical about the use of AI in managing their accounts.

Sesame Communications, a subsidiary of Internet Brands, was facing a significant challenge in managing their inbound leads. Despite deploying traditional marketing tactics like drip campaigns and lead scoring, the company was struggling with an overload of leads that were not being followed up on. The Director of Marketing, Todd Martini, noted that many of the high scores from lead scoring were not decision makers, but assistants who were watching a lot of webinars. Furthermore, when a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) was identified, these leads would go directly to territory managers, leaving a large list of untouched leads. The company was in need of a solution that could effectively manage and follow up on these untouched leads.

Purple, a digital platform for intelligent spaces, was facing a significant challenge in maintaining consistency in their lead follow-up process. With a large influx of leads and a goal of a 5-minute response time, the sales team was struggling to meet this target. The response time was largely dependent on the discipline and discretion of the sales rep, which was not a scalable solution. Purple needed to find a way to follow up with all its leads in a timely manner, without overburdening their sales team or compromising on the quality of their customer engagement.

Sunset World, a leading vacation provider in Mexico, faced the challenge of qualifying up to 1 million leads a week, increasing bookings, re-engaging longtime members, and converting one-time resort guests into Sunset Club members. The company's promotional campaigns generated a massive volume of leads, which were difficult to manage and engage effectively. The traditional approach of sending generic emails from a marketing automation program was not proactive enough. Moreover, the delay in responding to these leads often resulted in potential customers forgetting their interest in Sunset World's services. The company needed a solution that could quickly and efficiently engage with customers, making them aware of the offerings and sparking their interest before they interacted with the sales or reservations agents.

Epson America, a global technology leader, was facing challenges in standardizing and optimizing lead outreach and communication. The company generates leads through various channels including its website, trade shows, direct mail, email marketing, social media, print advertising, online banner advertising, and a brand awareness campaign. These activities generate approximately 40,000 to 60,000 leads each year. However, the company was struggling with the issue of sales representatives showing disinterest in leads that did not align with their named accounts, as their remuneration was based on sales on named accounts, not on leads sent to them. This led to a need for a solution that could effectively engage and qualify leads, freeing up Sales Reps to close more business.