Automating the creation, distribution and storage of eDocuments– a Q&A with AppExtremes COO Mark Whiteside
Today we announced Dell is expanding its Dell Cloud Business Applications (DCBA) portfolio with eSignature services from Adobe EchoSign and eDocument solutions from AppExtremes. The addition of the Conga Composer e-document solution from AppExtremes, in particular, helps companies dramatically reduce the time it takes to produce, distribute and store high quality e-quotes and proposals. Today, we dive into this latest addition to the DCBA portfolio with AppExtremes COO Mark Whiteside.
Bill: Mark, Conga Composer automates the creation and distribution of sales proposals, case reports, account plans and quotes directly from Salesforce CRM — explain the need for such a tool in the cloud applications space.
Mark: The simple truth of the matter is data is just data until you can look at it the way you need, that will resonate with the audience you’re trying to reach. Many sales professionals devote a great deal of time manually creating sales documents. Developing these manually on an ad-hoc basis, negates the time saved and efficiencies gained by using an automated sales tool like Sales Cloud. Conga Composer automates the quote and proposal creation and distribution process — With just a few clicks, sales professionals are able to create highly sophisticated documents that are critical to their success.
Bill: What role do you see integrated e-quotes, case reports, account plans and proposals playing in the future of cloud-based CRM?
Mark: Integrated e-quote, case reports, account plans and proposals save a huge amount of time from the process of creating compelling customer facing sales documents. Integrating with a cloud based CRM solution like Salesforce CRM means businesses no longer need to worry about making a technology purchase that will be incompatible with the rest of their technology suite.
Integration also means that businesses can add cloud-based CRM tools incrementally, as needed. For instance, the seamless integration of Conga Composer with EchoSign compresses the sales and contracting cycle down to single-click generation and delivery of agreements for customer review and signature. This tool plugs right into their existing applications, increasing efficiency.
Bill: What prompted AppExtremes to select Dell to partner with in this space?
Mark: It has been clear for the last several months that Dell is taking major steps into the software and solutions market. With Dell Cloud Business Applications, in particular, Dell demonstrates it has a deep understanding of the SaaS market and is poised to meet the needs of customers of all sizes. We felt that this was an excellent opportunity to partner with a world-class organization that is headed in a very positive direction.
Further, Dell is taking the right approach in marketing cloud-based applications to small and medium businesses – they understand that with a new wave of mainstream adopters in the market, the importance lies in providing the whole package: from software to services and support. We feel that AppExtremes is the perfect addition to Dell’s family of cloud-based applications.
We welcome your feedback and insights below in the comments.