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TMCNet: Journalist TR Cutler Discusses the Role of the CFO in Sales and Marketing

[May 12, 2008]

Journalist TR Cutler Discusses the Role of the CFO in Sales and Marketing

Many small and mid-sized businesses (SMB) have taken notice of Commence Corporation (www.commence.com), a provider of on-premise and hosted web-based solutions designed specifically for this businesses sector. The company is gaining momentum and marketshare with Commence On-Demand, a suite of CRM (customer relationship management) applications that is deployed as software as a service (SaaS (News - Alert)). In the current issue of AccountingSoftware411, journalist Thomas R. Cutler profiles, “The Role of CFO’s in Sales and Marketing.” The entire article may be read at http://www.accountingsoftware411.com/Press/PressDocView.aspx?docid=9619.

“While a CFO should not take control of sales or marketing,” noted Larry Caretsky, CEO of Commence Corporation, “I do believe they should play a role in helping to insure a structure is in place to maximize sales and marketing expenditures as well as insuring their company's ROI (return-on-investment) and profitability.”

CFO in the Marketing Department
Companies spend tens of thousands of dollars on trade shows and marketing promotions, but almost never close the loop to determine the effectiveness of marketing outreach efforts. Caretsky insists, “They have no information regarding how many leads the program provided, how many of those leads turned into customers, and how much revenue was generated from those customer that they may have closed. As such, ROI from costly and significant marketing expenditures cannot be determined. They simply establish a marketing budget for the year and perhaps increase it or decrease it the next year based on the performance of the business.”
While a strong vice-president, Marketing Director, or CFO should be paying close attention to these data, without a CRM (customer relationship management) solution and the appropriate reporting it becomes an impossible task.
CFO in the Sales Department

Companies that have renegade sales teams, cut deals because they can get away with it; they know that if they sign a deal, the company will most likely accept it. This volatile and unstructured practice leads to all kinds of problems that, according to Caretsky, “Drive CFO's crazy because of the inability to keep control of margins, lack of business integrity, and lost profitability.”

A CRM solution can help address wild sales force practice by deploying a structure that does not allow the sales team to take control the business. The structure tells the representative what margins are required and what discounts they are able to offer the customer. The results are pricing integrity, sustainable profitability, and more accurate sales reporting. .




CFO’s Prefer SaaS CRM



CRM On-Demand or SaaS (software-as-a-solution) is a web-based CRM solution that enables businesses to manage customer relationships in an organized and efficient manner. An intuitive set of ready to use applications automates the customer facing aspects of your business that directly impacts sales execution and customer service.

CFO’s prefer this type of technology solutions because Web-based hosted solutions are both fast and easy set up, while allowing the management of sales, marketing, and customer service. Errors, including simple data entry of customer contact information, are reduced because there is one central system for all customer information and detailed and powerful reporting and analytics.



Commence Corporation is a leading provider of Customer Relationship Management solutions. The company’s products are designed to provide growing businesses with flexible solutions that leverage the Web to offer an integrated platform for managing sales execution and customer service. Commence supports several thousand customers through a worldwide distribution network, with outlets in North and South America, Europe and Asia.


Commence Corporation
www.commence.com
Larry Caretsky
Marketing@commence.com
1-877-Commence

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