The majority of salesforce automation software that is on the market and designed for small and medium-sized businesses has never fully felt quite right to users — or for that matter, to JustEnough CEO Malcolm Buxton.
“Many of those packages were designed from the larger corporate point of view, even if they are marketed to smaller businesses,” he told CRM Buyer. “Smaller businesses’ sales reps are mostly nimble people that travel a lot or at least work off site a lot at customers’ businesses. They don’t have access to their CRM app on a minute-by-minute basis, even though they may need it.”
A mobile device was the obvious solution, but until the advent of the iPad, the products on the market just didn’t suit, Buxton believed.
Apple — recently joined by several competitors — is changing that. Riding this trend is JustEnough, which is developing connectors for the major CRM providers to deliver their apps on the iPad.
Starting With NetSuite
JustEnough launched its first such offering with NetSuite. Called “Mobile Sales Force Automation SuiteApp,” it was built using NetSuite’s SuiteCloud Computing Platform. SuiteApp essentially offers everything that NetSuite’s SuiteCloud does: NetSuite’s multitenant infrastructure, its business suite of applications for accounting, ERP, CRM and e-commerce, and a set of development tools to create customized business applications on top of NetSuite.
Because the JustEnough connector is designed for the mobile environment, it focuses on the most likely uses, Buxton said.
“It is sensitive to location, so it knows where the rep is,” he explained, “and because of that, it automatically localizes everything. He or she can instantly see the best prospects in the area. The application then prioritizes these prospects based on our forecasting engines. So what is pulled up for the rep are the top customers he or she is most likely to sell to and what are they are most likely to buy.”
What’s Next
Next up will be Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Buxton said, which is due for release by the end of September.
The company is talking with other CRM providers to roll out similar connections, he noted. Also, it is working on custom connectors for companies that have complex CRM integrations between, say, Salesforce.com and SAP.
The connectors themselves are effortless to use, according to Buxton. All one has to do is download the JustEnough app from the App Store and use it to connect to the NetSuite account. The same process will apply to Microsoft Dynamics CRM and whichever other vendors JustEnough signs up.
Order Management
JustEnough is also looking at the order management space to make similar offerings.
“The mobile functionality that the iPad offers is relevant to many different software areas,” Buxton pointed out.
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