www.mirrorreview.com May 2020
Best Performing The
Solution Providers of 2020
CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY The Importance of Environmental Responsibility In The Corporate World INNOVATING WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES How Finest Wireless Technologies Are Changing The Communication For Better
Jon Ferrara, Founder & CEO
The Simple, Smart CRM for OfďŹ ce 365 and G Suite Teams
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AS ONE ONE SOFTWARE SUITE TO RUN YOUR ENTIRE BUSINESS
EDITOR’S LETTER
Upgrading The CRM Domain
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n today’s consumer-driven world, the practice of dealing with current customers and flourishing business by bringing more customers into loops is paramount as well as mere a dilemma. The implementation of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program undoubtedly boosts this state of affairs and aid in effectively challenging the new forms of marketing and industry. It has been observed that CRM as a strategy and as a technology has gone through an incredible transformation over the past years. Now, it helps businesses build a strong relationship with their customers that, in turn, creates loyalty and customer retention. According to Gartner, CRM software totaled $26.3 billion in 2015 and predicts that figure will continue to rise through 2018. Also, the report by SuperOffice states that 86% of customers are willing to pay more for better customer experience. This showcase that the need for CRM is escalating in the business world. It's an assumption that more the sophisticated strategies involved in implementing the CRM, the more strong and fruitful is the business. Most companies have dedicated tools of the world-class to keep CRM systems in their workplace. However, to keep up with the ever-changing world, they need a modified or upgraded version of the typical CRM system. Witnessing this gap, various industry players started developing a wide-ranging and value-added CRM system that best suits the client's business needs. Our latest magazine issue, “The 10 Best Performing CRM Solution Providers of 2020,” highlights the best performing CRM solution providers that are bringing innovative CRM systems that fulfill the customers' demands. These solutions providers are going beyond the imagination of customers and delivering customized CRM for every client’s business needs. Our cover star, Nimble is transforming the industry by delivering a CRM that is dominating the world of social selling today. Moving ahead, the team of Mirror Review has written the fantastic tales of featured CRM solution providers. Please check out the sections ‘Corporate Environmental responsibility’ and ‘Innovating Wireless Technologies’ to read articles written by our editorial team.
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COVER STORY
10 NIMBLE
The Simple, Smart CRM for OfďŹ ce 365 and G Suite Teams
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Leg Med
Deliver Software f
Archive Digital
22 Corporate Environmental responsibility
Helping Businesses Transform Into Digital Leaders
The Importance Of Environmental Responsibility In The Corporate World
C O N T
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gal Tech dia Group
ring Reliable CRM for Legal Technology Companies
30 Workbooks An UniďŹ ed CRM & Marketing Automation Software For Growing Businesses
28 OnePageCRM A Versatile Product Bringing Action And Focus To The Chaotic World Of Sales
32 Innovating Wireless Technologies
How Finest Wireless Technologies Are Changing The Communication For Better
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Connect to your customers in a whole new way with the world’s #1 CRM platform.
The Simple, Smart CRM for OfямБce 365 and G Suite Teams
COVER STORY 10
Best Performing The
Solution Providers of 2020
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COVER STORY
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he CRM industry continues to grow at a staggering rate and is becoming complex day by day. Enterprises want real-time access to consumer data, with mobile and cloud applications leading the way. They now need to be able to link apps and technology with consumer data, creating a more personalized experience. Founder and CEO Jon Ferrara understands this need as he faced a similar situation, which motivated him to establish Nimble in 2009. He believes “CRM should really stand for 'customer reporting management' because, in reality, CRMs don't work for you -- you work for them.” Through Nimble, he is transforming the CRM industry by delivering a CRM that is dominating the world of social selling today.
other. There wasn't a tool that integrated email, contacts, calendar, sales, and marketing automation into one unified platform. That's how I got started on the career path of pioneering CRM, contact management, and relationship tools.”
The Notion behind Nimble
As a people-centric leading company, Nimble empowers people that are connecting with other people. It mainly serves professionals in the fields of real estate, financial advisors, mortgage bankers, headhunting, and more.
Jon founded GoldMine Software Corp in 1989. During the 90's — when business use of the Internet was just beginning — he grew the first modern CRM into a $100 million dollar enterprise. At that time, he used Influencer Marketing to do it, without an ad budget, access to social media, or smartphones. Jon's personal struggle to build relationships in the new age was the inspiration for founding Nimble. He started to use social media in its infancy and immediately saw how it was going to change the way businesses work, play, buy, and sell. Then, he started searching for a CRM that would allow him to effectively manage his contacts within social networks. “The funny thing is that I never wanted to be a salesperson,” explains Jon. “I studied computer science. After two years of working at Aerospace, I decided I wasn't an Aerospace guy. After that, I got a job at a tech startup and they put me in sales. I quickly realized I was struggling with growing relationships at scale, collaborating with my team, and achieving my business goals.” However, Jon quickly realized that there wasn't one in the market because CRMs weren't about relationships - they were about reporting. He firmly believed that the best CRM crosses department walls as well as makes sure that everyone in the company is on the same page. As a result, Nimble came into existence and has since evolved into the simple, smart CRM for Office 365 and G Suite. “Now, this was before Outlook or Salesforce existed,” says Jon. “There wasn't any type of contact management platform or a way for teams to easily collaborate with each
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He further adds, “I really love to build these tools because they not only empower me, but they also empower others. It aligns with my philosophy in life that we're here to grow other people. I build relationship management tools and teach people how to build relationships at scale. I believe if you teach someone to fish, they will eventually learn that you sell fishing poles. That's what I do -- I sell relationship fishing poles.”
Offering A Convenient Integrated CRM Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Nimble is the industry-leading CRM for Office 365 and G Suite that builds award-winning contact management solutions for teams and individuals. Its primary focus is to simplify CRM; therefore, it offers a CRM system that combines the power of relationship management, unified conversations/ communications, social media tools, and team collaboration under one roof. The company keeps clients and their teams organized, which allows for more effective communications between the companies and their contacts from one centralized SaaS platform regardless of what they are using: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Microsoft Teams, or email. Most importantly, the CRM system has the ability to follow up with the client's follow-through; schedule the next meeting, log notes, and add tasks to turn their business relationships into goldmines. Now, Nimble has experienced notable growth, with more than 100,000 registered users and more than 10,000 paid customers across the globe. Unique Features of Nimble CRM For businesses, being innovative or outperforming the competitors is crucial for growth and success. Nimble has adopted a new technique that differentiates itself from others. It is the first CRM that “automatically” builds itself and updates records to always keep them up-to-date for clients. Clients can access CRM from anywhere at any time
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“We don’t live in our CRM; we live in our inboxes and on social platforms. Your CRM should follow you to these places.” Jon Ferrara, Founder & CEO
to complete their work. Since most CRMs just cover the relationship management aspect, they don't really cover sales intelligence, sales enablement, or sales automation. To address this, Nimble has built-in intelligence, SFA (Sales Force Automation), and templated email tracking. The CRM developed by Nimble is not only for relationship management, lead-flow, and reporting but also to empower those customer-facing business team members. One of the most unique and powerful aspects of Nimble is that it works for you everywhere you work (within your inbox, on social platforms, your favorite apps, and on any webpage) via the Nimble Prospector browser extension. Nimble users can manage relationships wherever they engage (including prospecting new contacts, enriching leads with business details including email and phone, logging activities, viewing contact and company details for existing contacts, sending trackable email templates, applying tags, and more) right from Nimble Prospector. How Jon Used Nimble to Connect with Disney In the fall of 2017, Tiffani Bova (a former Gartner analyst and current Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce) tweeted that “CRM isn't about managements 'command/control' – it's about empowering
front-line resources to serve customers better and that there is a need for improving customer experience.” Disney's Global Public Policy Systems Analyst Theo Rand reacted to Tiffani's tweet by mentioning Jon Ferrara and Nimble. He posted that he was impressed with Nimble but was not sure if sales managers would loosen their grip. This immediately got Jon's attention. He believed most CRMs fail to empower their customer-facing customers to successfully engage with their prospects and customers and are instead reporting tools for their managers. Keen to learn more about Theo, Jon turned to Nimble's Smart Contacts App to “auto-magically” build a record about who Theo is, where he works, and what he does. To Jon's surprise, Nimble discovered that Theo is the head of CRM and Data at Disney. Jon next used Nimble Prospector to find Theo's contact information; after he commented on the Twitter stream, he decided to send Theo an email. Jon explains that he felt that Theo gave him permission to reach out on email by talking about him the way he did. “It was intimate. He knew who I was. He knew what my passion was, what my business was about, and I felt comfortable reaching out to thank him for shouting me out. I also asked to connect with him to learn more about him,” he adds. “This is the way you should reach out to people. You should reach out with a purpose to
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COVER STORY
connect to learn more about the other person and find values to add value to their journey,” continues Jon.
Focusing On Building A Great Team, Managing Other Responsibilities
Pioneering Personal CRM
Jon believes that great companies are led by great teams. Great teams are led by passionate innovators. He says, “If you think about companies like Ford or Edison, they were all led by innovators with great ideas. The leaders of these companies were able to build teams of smart people that believed in their vision, empowered them to do what they do best, and then got out of their way. Leaders who try to do everything end up achieving nothing.”
Nimble has pioneered social CRM and social selling before people understood social media's impact on business. The company progressed beyond focusing on social media when it saw the masses embracing social selling and social media became omnipresent. It is also encouraging people to use CRM to build their own brand and network. Jon asserts, “Now, what we move towards is pioneering simple, smart CRM for the rest of us; essentially evolving CRM from being complex and difficult to being something that people really love to use. And not just the sales team --the whole company.” In the upcoming future, the CRM industry is going to be transformed drastically. Jon predicts that the future of CRM will be centered on empowering better relationships for a better future.
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Therefore, a great team strives to build a product or company that performs at an optimal level. Likewise, the Nimble team is putting in their best effort to create a novel solution that can help the business grow and thrive. At Nimble, Jon tries to maintain a balance between achieving huge growth and the overall happiness of the team.
Best Performing The
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THE SIMPLE, SMART CRM
FOR OFFICE 365 Jon comments, “Some people think 'CEO' stands for Chief Executive Officer, but I think it stands for Chief Evangelical Officer.” He comes up with great ideas, build great teams, and then he continues to evangelize the brand story. He ensures that his stories get to other people and doesn't consider himself an executive but just another part of the team. Jon asserts, “I believe that a company's brand is built on the promises they make and the experiences they deliver; most of those experiences are done through your customerfacing business team members. Empower your team to build their brand in order to build the company brand -ideally, this will also humanize your brand as well.” Closing Thoughts Jon has a life lesson quote that he came up with himself. He calls it the “three P's of life success:” passion, plan, and purpose. Jon believes that if you exercise and identify these three P's, you will transform yourself through and through. Maybe not exactly how you imagined, but the journey you
will have and the places you'll go to will transform your life for the better. His other favorite life lesson quote is that “you can get whatever you want by helping people get whatever they want.” Jon believes service is the new sales, which is why he builds the tools people need to build better relationships at scale. “We're on this planet to grow our souls by helping other people to grow theirs,” explains Jon. “The more people you help grow, the more you will grow in turn.” Jon is a firm believer that there is a higher purpose for us on this planet. In the brief time that you're here, Jon thinks you should be as present as you can. By being present with other people, you will get more out of life. He says, “The value of not spending your day ruminating about the past, worrying about the future, holding on too tight to the things you cherish or averting the pain you might feel from dealing with whatever you need to deal with.”
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Company Names
Info
Act-OnGordon Raghu Raghavan, Founder
Act-On Software is a software-as-a-service product for marketing automation developed by Act-On, a company headquartered in Portland, Oregon. www.act-on.com
AppBuddy Marc Anthony Aubin, CEO & Founder
AppBuddy is the leading provider of business process interaction platforms that keep the best interest of the customer in mind. www. appbuddy.com
Archive Digital John Morton, Founder & CEO
Archive Digital is a data-first company that makes the data human and emphasizes data strategy and CRM alongside lead generation. www.archivedigital.com
Informatica Amit Walia, CEO
Informatica is a software development company founded in 1993. Its core products include Enterprise Cloud Data Management and Data Integration. www.informatica.com
InsideView Umberto Milletti, Founder
InsideView is a software as a service company that gleans insights and relationships from more than 40,000 sources of business information, contact data, online news, and social media and customer CRM data. www.insideview.com
Jade Global Karan Yaramada, Founder, President & CEO
Jade Global is well-positioned to be your strategic IT services partner. www.jadeglobal.com
Legal Tech Media Group Chelsey Lambert & Cathy Kenton, Co-CEO
LTMG is a full-service marketing agency focused on legal tech providers with an internal publishing division, Legal Tech Publishing (LTP) that directly reaches legal buyers. www.legaltechmg.com
Nimble Jon Ferrara, Founder & CEO
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Nimble is the industry-leading CRM for Office 365 and G Suite that builds award-winning contact management solutions for teams and individuals. www.nimble.com
OnePageCRM Michael FitzGerald, Founder & CEO
OnePageCRM is the #1 action-focused CRM software for small business. www.onepagecrm.com
Workbooks John Cheney, Co-founder & CEO
For years, Workbooks have been focused on delivering the best CRM services to mid-market organizations at an affordable price. www.workbooks.com
Archive Digital Helping Businesses Transform Into Digital Leaders John Morton CEO & Founder
O
ver the years, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has risen as a revolutionary concept in business growth. Companies place significant emphasis on developing effective CRM strategies. Now, in the age of acquisitions and pressure selling, there are hundreds of different CRMs. However, but only a few companies in this sector own the vast majority of the market. As a result, clients often feel pressured into solutions that are far more complex than they need. This creates a demand for CRM solution providers who understand the business problems of their clients, their verticals, and the need for unique individualized solutions.
departments, Archive Digital, can provide ideal solutions that shift underperforming organizations into digital leaders. Archive Digital's primary focus is to support clients with the strategy and implementation of paid social media, SEO, organic social media, CRM, and attribution modeling. It also equips its clients with services such as conversion rate optimization, web development, and user experience design. Additionally, Archive Digital helps its clients by identifying the key choke points in their conversion funnels and developing strategies to open them up, thereby increasing traffic and easing new customers to convert.
In light of this need, Archive Digital was established in 2013. As a data-first company, Archive Digital makes the data human and emphasizes data strategy and CRM alongside lead generation. The company also ensures growth by developing leading digital strategy and pushing the boundaries of CRM tech by building apps, plugins, and solutions that automate workflows and increase productivity.
Archive Digital is also a B Corporation certified company, which values the balance between profit and purpose. To maintain this certification Archive Digital assesses the impact of its business decisions on the staff, clients, and greater community, as well as offers regular pro-bono support to the non-profit sector.
Fostering Digital Growth with Versatile Solutions
With its key focus on data and CRM, Archive Digital creates expansive growth across a variety of verticals through its dynamic technology and digital strategy.
By combining their data, strategy, and creative
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Serving different Industrial Verticals
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Archive Digital has had many successes in supporting higher education institutions, year over year, with their customer journeys by leveraging creativity and technology. Archive Digital has helped institutions cope with the challenge of keeping relationships active over long periods. The eCommerce and SaaS clients of Archive Digital have also experienced steady growth through the company's services. Consequently, it has become the preferred choice of clients. Building a Strong Relationship with Clients Archive Digital focuses on achieving optimum results. Account Managers spend a dedicated amount of time to support and enable clients to step out of their comfort zones and into a new level of growth. Archive Digital breaks the traditional approach of being the 'yes' agency and does not settle for ideas that won't drive optimal results. By maintaining clear and robust communication with clients, Archive Digital's staff do not hesitate to speak up and be true partners to their clients. The company's most successful projects are rooted in strong executive decision making, allowing for clear, impactful, and agile projects. Along with this, Archive Digital provides implementation support to its client's marketing teams, directors, and coordinators. In this way, it builds and maintains a strong relationship with its clients and ensures they are set up to digitally to achieve their business goals. Ensuring Optimum Performance To maintain these consistent results, Archive Digital analyzes performance through regular audits of deliverable work, meticulous campaign reviews, and on-going new technology and strategy brainstorms. This systematic review of services allows Archive Digital to hold everyone (including clients) accountable for actions and decisions made collectively. Building a Strong Team
We're here to LEAD clients that aren't afraid to think big, invest in their futures, and achieve explosive growth in unique and often overlooked ways. If you're looking for a regular service provider or order taker, an agency like Archive probably isn't for you. – John Morton growth. The management team includes certified experts in both small business CRMs as well as Enterprise Level Solutions. Archive Digital bolsters staffs' expertise with a variety of professional development opportunities that allow them to stay ahead of the curb. The company also supports the team in expanding their professional career and leadership skills through workshops and public speaking opportunities at leading industry conferences. A Tech-savvy Leader with Avid Experience The CEO and Founder, John Morton is the key driver behind Archive Digital's inception and growth. He has over 12 years of experience in Digital Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing, and Advertising. In order to propel clients ahead of their competitors, John is always charging staff with the mission to seek out the best growth opportunities available. John believes that because of ____ sales reps are transitioning to more customer/user support now more than ever. Companies that centralize and use their CRMs best to create data-driven customer journeys and nurture streams, will see intensive growth in engagement and overall sales.
Archive Digital focuses on building strong high-integrity teams that contribute to the company's overall success and
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Legal Tech Media Group Delivering Reliable CRM Software for Legal Technology Companies Cathy Kenton (left) & Chelsey Lambert (right)
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oday, CRM has become multipurpose, making it applicable to almost every market segment. Companies delivering products and services to lawyers, law firms, and other legal professionals are no exception. A professional-grade CRM is a necessity to properly market and sell to their prospective customers: lawyers, law firms, corporate legal departments and other legal professionals. Chelsey Lambert (Chief Tactical Officer & Co-CEO) and Cathy Kenton (Chief Strategy Officer & Co-CEO) established Legal Tech Media Group (LTMG) to help legal tech providers succeed. At LTMG, the founding duo and their team has been assisting legal technology product and service providers market and sell to lawyers, law firms, and legal professionals since 2018. “In our B2B environment, legal vendors are being challenged to be smarter with their lead generation, messaging, and conversations to prospects and successfully nurture contacts to become customers”, says the duo. Both have worked for legal technology companies, so they share and empathize with legal tech vendors, and are committed to working exclusively withing this highly specialized niche.
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The Founding Duo with Complementary Talents Chelsey and Cathy have different roles at LTMG. Chelsey is a passionate marketing and sales specialist with more than 15 years of experience. She has an impressive track record of executing programs as a leader in marketing, sales, operations, and product development. She is a nationally renowned legal technology speaker and ABA TECHSHOW faculty member. As Chief Tactical Officer, Chelsey's priority is to oversee the successful execution of all client marketing and sales initiatives. On the other hand, Cathy has over 30 years' experience in the legal vertical and guides legal business partners in making strategic marketing and business development decisions. Through her expertise and knowledge, she helps legal business partners avoid pitfalls, generate internal buyin, and turn strategies into action. Today, Cathy leads LTMG's efforts to help clients increase market share, develop successful marketing strategies, and deliver their products to the appropriate market segment. Recalling their memories, the dynamic duo shares, “Through a chance meeting leaving a legal technology
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conference, we realized that we had complementary talents that could help us build a scalable marketing agency”. Hence, LTMG came to existence. A Full-Service Marketing Agency LTMG is the only full-service marketing agency focused on legal tech providers with an internal publishing division, Legal Tech Publishing (LTP) that directly reaches legal buyers. LTP has compiled a proprietary subscription list that is exclusive to LTMG by publishing product reviews, whitepapers, and case studies for end-user use. Through the list, the company can test messaging and provide an outlet that other agencies simply cannot reach.
Our goal is to help legal technology vendors develop and measure successful marketing strategies and accelerate client acquisition through thoughtful initiatives and processes.
As a CRM solution provider, LTMG designs, implements, and manages CRM solutions for its clients. The company has worked with and tested most of the leading CRM systems on the market for several years, and is experienced in selecting and implementing CRMs for its customers and itself. LTMG became a HubSpot Certified Partner in May 2019 after nearly a decade of working with and recommending HubSpot. And, in the past nine months, LTMG has achieved Platinum Partner status with HubSpot, and today it is the only Certified HubSpot Partner that specializes in working with legal technology providers. The services offered by LTMG include product scoping and needs assessment, onboarding and documentation, custom setup and integration with multiple applications, dashboard development and refinement, ongoing management and data cleansing, marketing department training, and customer journey and workflow development. In addition, LTMG offers sales training, sales sequence development, sales playbook creation, marketing & sales alignment, blog management, content creation, and complete CRM management and reporting (if preferred). Furthermore, numerous LTMG customers have fully outsourced their marketing campaigns to LTMG. In that role, its Client Management team works with clients to create and produce content and report results to executive teams.
understands this and has helped multiple companies implement and utilize CRM software to enable better communication and qualification of leads, sales process, and customer success. As a result, companies were able to enhance their productivity and growth.
Helping Customers Embrace CRM Software
Critical Role of CRM in Business
Companies started adopting CRM software to streamline and optimize their operations. A practical implementation of CRM today is more than just a database, it is a working partner in the completion of processes and workflows within the enterprise that was not even conceived a few years ago. However, the journey to adapt to any technology is quite complicated and tedious for companies. LTMG
The CRM market is competitive and complex as customer expectations for customized software increase. Chelsey and Cathy believe CRMs are the backbone of business success. As advanced technologies continue to be developed, CRM will play an increasingly important role in business processes.
Unique Qualities of LTMG The longevity and professional reputations of LTMG's founders are unmatched. Although LTMG is a young company, the founders are both seasoned C-level executives who have led sales and marketing teams for some of the vertical leaders. The founding duo proudly asserts, “The systems and accountability we have put in place assure that clients receive consistent and high-quality work. We have been fortunate to have built a team of dedicated individuals that take pride in the quality of their work”. The competition in the CRM market is rising as new and old industry players are inventing new solutions. To stand out, companies need to outperform their competitors. To achieve this, LTMG has worked with nearly every CRM application on the market and tested it. It works with the CRM application chosen by its clients; however, its agency and publishing division are both built on HubSpot, so it recommends and implements HubSpot for its clients.
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CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY
The Importance of
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he rising environmental crisis is not a new update for the humankind. One of the most important challenges faced by the human race is the successful identification and management of environmental risks. Adding to the challenges is the global nature of environmental risks that make the assumption and practice of environmental responsibility difficult. The ecological duty is often recognized to have many sides and negotiated between social actors as numerous other, challenging responsibilities. However, environmental responsibility is often handled negligently. The environmental crisis has been ignored for too long, but now we all are pressed to radically change the way of living and also the way business is done. Businesses have largely contributed to the crisis and have ignored the environment or social costs to pursue profit. To reverse the effects the business will have to move the markets towards more sustainable practices. By implementing a range of strategies, organizations can address environmental issues. The environmental footprint can be reduced by implementing the right changes. For instance, an accountant can be part of the solution, where they can help nature and also manage the
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costs. Through harnessing corporate power, one can make the necessary shift towards a sustainable economy. The History of Environmental Responsibility A concept of “earth jurisprudence” was introduced, which was a theory underlying the law's ability to protect the environment to regulate businesses that pollute. This could be defined as a much older concept, dating back in 1600 during the creation of British East India Company. Although, since the 1970s awareness of this environmental crisis has grown, due to the prominence given to major environmental disasters like Sahelian droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. Correspondingly, the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 affected immensely on the environment. All this drew attention to the fact that the human ecosystem is threatened by crucial imbalances in productivity and in the distribution of goods and services. The accelerating progress did not benefit the environment and affected environmental stewardship.
In The Corporate World
Over the past few decades, the environmental aspect of Corporate Environment Responsibility (CER) has been in talks, as the stakeholders increasingly oblige companies to become more environmentally aware and socially responsible. The traditional business model portrayed environmental protection as a mere “public interest�, however, these unconcerned actions have led to severe damage. Major steps towards the prevention and alleviation of the environmental damage have been taken up by the private sector, and have adopted an approach of co-responsibility. Government and organizations have started suggesting strategies for the protection of the environment and alongside economic growth.
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CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY
Going Green and Growing Fast
Corporate Environmentalism Is Evolving
The challenges cultivating from the growing population and changing climate have become a more concerning issue. However, the key to it is the innovative entrepreneur who might bring a solution with their drive and imagination in the industry. The job rate in the solar and wind industry is growing at 20 percent per year, which is 12 times quicker than the general economy. In addition, the clean energy industry is introducing new opportunities for entrepreneurs.
The 1980s witnessed the voluntary participation of corporations towards environmental initiatives, which therefore was named as corporate environmentalism. To curb the greenhouse gases and prepare countries and communities from the inevitable effects of climate change the leading business leaders hashed out a deal. Some reputed companies have stepped into the game like Apple, Panasonic, and Walmart.
However, the big industries are ignoring green energy as it may lead to lower oil profits in the end. These energy efficiency job accounts of 2.2 million American workers, amongst which 70% are employed by companies with ten or fewer employees. Although with rising awareness, falling prices and more interest, the times are promising for the entrants entering the industry or introducing something innovative that would disrupt the whole industry. The rapid expansion is not just promoting clean energy but also other innovative ways, which are contributing immensely to the good environment. For example, in the U.S. around 35% of solid waste is being recycled or composited. The one country that excels in this green energy transformation is Sweden, it has been successful to recycle or incinerated about 99% of household waste. This is known as the Sweden Recycling Revolution and this initiative was so successful that the country has worn out of the trash for their recycling plants and has begun to import trash from other countries. Plastics have always been a hazardous thing. People assume that America has the biggest share of plastic consumers, but China claims the throne here with greater than 50% market share. To control its ill effects plastic-recycling companies are estimated to top $56 billion by 2024. Companies are striving every day to accumulate and reproduce electronics, scrap cars, metals, and more. The recycling industry is on the go to do the damage control caused by humans in all these years.
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Apple is known for its cutting-edge design and tech, however, it holds the same reputation when it comes to going green initiative. The company's $848 million energy deal with a solar farm in California enabled Apple to power all its operations with renewable energy. Later, the company also made a commitment to get 100% of its paper packaging from sustainable sources to protect the world's remaining forests. Panasonic has invested in ways to help employees reduce commute emissions, where the employees use the company's transit subsidy and 2,700 carpooling in commuter buses. The mega-retailer Walmart is not far behind in the race, the company has made some major sustainable choices, which have huge ripple effects on the market due to its large market share. Walmart has come up with a chemical policy that provides a strong incentive for suppliers, which abide by stricter standards or they can risk losing Walmart's customer base. This bold standpoint from the globally renowned companies has helped to strengthen support for climate action and sustainable business practices. To conclude, we don't want to debate climate change, we want to stop it. In order to extend the survivability and increase the profit rates companies have to adapt the environmental duty. Due to the greater awareness of this topic in both social and business markets have taken environmental responsibility seriously. The customers have responded satisfactorily to companies with better CER. Studies are trying to find a balance between economic growth and cleaner environments, which might help to reduce the carbon footprint. With joint efforts towards the environment, humans could thwart their pollution and carbon footprint on the natural resources.
Do more than automate your email-activate your entire customer experience.
OnePageCRM A Versatile Product Bringing Action And Focus To The Chaotic World Of Sales Michael FitzGerald Founder & CEO
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RM allows businesses both large and small to organize, automate, and synchronize every aspect of the customer interaction. It is a versatile tech so it can cater to multiple sectors of business -like marketing, sales, customer service, and support. Most of the CRM platforms involve businesses analyzing customer interactions and improving customer relationships. All this has made CRM technology widely embraced throughout the business world, giving rise to several CRM providers. The CRM market is overcrowded which leads to increased noise that confuses the potential customer and makes it more difficult to convey the message. Often these CRMs mislead the customer by providing bloated software and poor UX which leaves bad feedback for CRM. Besides, CRM can be a very generic term, perceived as anything from Help software to HR support. This creates another challenge for the focused CRMs like OnePageCRM. OnePageCRM is aimed to drive sales for small and medium-sized businesses.
website development business. On not finding the solution that would help him act on the leads rather than just store their information, he decided to build it on his own. He sketched the first-actionable CRM model behind a napkin while getting an ice-cream! The CRM was to be based on the GTD (Getting Things Done) productivity principle that encouraged a person to remove the clutter and focus on a task at hand. He and his team worked on the model and launched the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in a mere three months. Due to the team's strong conviction that the action method is the ultimate way to go for efficient sales, the app gained popularity amongst the clients. OnePageCRM team utilizes their own app and has avoided distractions throughout the journey. Now OnePageCRM is one of the leading CRM providers with over 11,000 paying customers, ranging from small businesses to international giants. Michael concluded by saying, “We're passionate about what we're doing and our product. We are building the most effective sales app in the world. And our story is just beginning!”
In the Beginning Was the Napkin Diverse From the Other CRMs Back in 2010, Michael FitzGerald (Founder and CEO) was looking for a CRM software to help him grow his
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The market is filled with CRMs that are more of a “Dead”
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database used by the salesperson to store contact information. This makes maintaining and updating them as another admin task that can be ignored. However, OnePageCRM is built on the 'Getting Things Done' principle and is focused on sales actions. The company believes that the more sales actions one makes, the more one can sell. Thus, it has tailored an approach where each contact added to the system is assigned the Next Action. For instance, the moment a salesperson completes this sales action (say, sends an email or makes a call), it pushes them to set the next one. This approach assists them to follow-up with the lead and, ultimately, builds strong client relationships.
We built OnePageCRM to free salespeople from bloated software, bring action and focus to their sales process, and make sure not a single opportunity slips through the cracks.
In addition to this, some of the other notable highpoints of OnePageCRM are, Ÿ
It stores all the relevant contact information like associated deals, logged calls and notes, and latest updates, on one scrollable page, which makes it easier for the team to stay updated with the contact's progress
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OnePageCRM offers both Kanban and Forecast Pipeline views, which makes it customizable for any sales process, and creating a deal takes just a few clicks
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It closes in on “zero admin” for the users as OnePageCRM has automated all tedious admin tasks, thus a user will require exactly 37 seconds from creating a deal to sending a sales quote
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It offers native iOS and Android apps so the users can harness the power of its CRM on the go
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OnePageCRM can help automate lead generation through its Chrome Extension and gather leads from anywhere on the web in a click
The Product Guy of OnePageCRM Michael works closely with a lot of stakeholders in the business, from users to the tech team, and he terms himself as the product guy of OnePageCRM. Through his position, he tries to focus on building strong relationships across the board. According to Michael, strong relationships are what helps to deliver a great product and establish it in the market. His decisions are supported by his rich experience and the technical background.
As a leader, Michael believes that time should not be wasted on unnecessary meetings. He and his team aim to stay agile and only focus the attention on tasks that are important. He adds “Our software operates on strictly noclutter policy, so it's only logical that the same applies to our daily operations.” Michael has been successful in creating an eclectic team with the right individuals handling the right roles. He thinks that one should focus on getting the right people on the bus and getting them into the right seats. This approach has helped him acquire strong leadership in Customer Success, Operations, Marketing, Finance, and Tech. Aiming To Evolve and Upgrade “In our app, we put the salesperson first, not management or finance. If the salesperson is served first (and best), the sales boost will follow,” asserted Michael. OnePageCRM has already raised the bar for the CRM UX and Michael has noticed that many other systems are influenced by it. Having a different approach, the company has pioneered “actions” as the key to gain the customer base and move a sale forward, as opposed to focusing on graphs and charts. Being one of the leading CRM providers, OnePageCRM is planning to evolve and upgrade its CRM system, while maintaining its focus on sales and action. “CRM needs to evolve as more and more sales happen without meeting face to face. It needs to turn its attention to servicing the buyer without being in the room,” concluded Michael.
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Workbooks An Unified CRM & Marketing Automation Software For Growing Businesses
John Cheney Co-founder & CEO
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he market is filled with CRM vendors competing for greater market share. Despite the CRM market being crowded, the majority of solution providers have failed to meet the needs of mid-market organizations that typically have smaller IT budgets and limited in-house IT teams - but still require depth and breadth in functionality. Frustrated by the lack of good business applications for the mid-market, John Cheney, a serial entrepreneur, put a team together and created a business plan for Workbooks.
Collins, an early Angel Investor of Workbooks. Dan is an ex-pat Brit who has lived in the US for over 20 years. Dan is supported by SVP – North America, Penny Lowe. Penny ensures the US team builds on the implementation best practices she helped develop whilst turning Workbooks into one of the UK's foremost CRM providers.
John Cheney (Co-Founder and CEO of Workbooks-UK) had experienced these issues first hand which made him realize that there was a market gap for a platform like Workbooks—a single SaaS platform that companies can utilize to run their business. Its services distinguish from others as they are cost-effective at 50-70% less than alternatives like Salesforce or Microsoft. Above and beyond typical CRM functionalities, Workbooks services include marketing automation, event management, order management and fulfillment, invoicing, and supplier management. Having extensive experience of tailoring the services to specific sectors, Workbooks has become one of the leading CRM solution providers for the mid-market in the UK.
The Unique Bouquet of Services
Expansion and New Opportunities Following successes in the UK, in 2018, the management team saw an opportunity to enter the US market. Based in East Hartford, Connecticut, the US operation is led by Dan
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Workbooks focus is the Manufacturing and IT sectors, as well as Professional Business Services, where they have extensive experience in tailoring its service.
Workbooks unites the entire organization around data and processes, promoting teamwork and collaboration. It provides a single 360-degree view of customers, and the information is accessible at all touchpoints. Products: Ÿ Marketing Automation: Helps marketing teams segment and target, capture and manage leads, run campaigns and events, and track ROI. In addition to CRM, Workbooks offers integrated Marketing Automation capabilities: an advanced email marketing tool to easily and efficiently target your audience, a web analytics tool to identify anonymous website visitors, survey, and popup tools to increase engagement. Ÿ Sales force Automation: Helps sales work more effectively, better identify and track opportunities, manage pipeline, forecast accurately, monitor performance, close more deals, and grow revenue.
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Order Management Processing: Enables businesses to better manage suppliers, quickly generate quotations, invoicing, credit notes, and track financial performance. Ÿ Customer Services: Drive a positive experience, including support ticketing and case management, selfservice, and service metrics. Ÿ
Services offered around the platform: 1) Implementation: Ÿ Jumpstart: An 'out-of-the-box' solution, Jumpstart is a quick way to get value from using CRM leveraging preexisting templates and workflows. Ÿ Shared Success: Workbooks will discuss business outcomes, CRM requirements and help you draft your CRM project roadmap and budget. Once there is a a shared vision of success, they'll match your investment in Workbooks licenses with free consulting days*. 2) Ongoing services: Ÿ The Customer Success team focuses on time to value and drives proactive engagement with customers throughout their lifecycle. Ÿ Seasoned consultants guide customers through the process of setup and implementation, and integrations with other business applications to ensure you realize the full potential of your investment in CRM. Ÿ The Support team's mission is to solve customers' problems, from reporting issues to technical advice, they are your first point of call. Ÿ Training (online videos, on-site and classroom classes etc.). Team Driven by Core values Workbooks has been successful in helping people become more successful, efficient, and effective, together as individuals and as organizations. John and his team are driven by the core values, Customer First, Co-operative, Committed, Creative and Competitive, and their behavior or decisions revolve around these core values. Workbooks leadership team strives to embrace these values in life and inspire others. He adds, “It is vital to surround yourself with people that have experience of managing and building strong operations and stakeholder relationships.” John and Dan have undertaken the responsibility of operations in the UK and the US, respectively, and are leading with an effective leadership approach.
Our tools are fast and easy to use, competitively priced, and as there's no hardware or software required, Workbooks is quick to implement—you can be up and running in days.
enterprise. Being a serial entrepreneur and an influencing leader, Dan has a unique leadership approach. As a veteran tech enthusiast, he has been able to grow several businesses both nationally and internationally. He believes that an effective leadership approach is the blend of experience and determination. Workbooks has a very strong product vision and development capability. Working closely with customers to understand their pain points and requirements, if not they provide the additional functionality customers need. The potential for Workbooks in the US is all too obvious for Dan: “I believe we can provide more value by providing Marketing Automation, Orders & Invoices and CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) capabilities in a tightly integrated package.” Looking Forward To Future Advancements
Effective Leadership Approach
For years, Workbooks has been focused on delivering the best CRM services to mid-market organizations at an affordable price. Its ability to offer the same functionalities as some of the large enterprises' platforms is allowing smaller, growing businesses to organize their business operations more effectively and be more successful. Looking at the advancements of technology, John predicts that the future is providing companies with the platform to drive increased revenue, improve customer experience, reducing their operational costs, and improved business decision making through better visibility of key metrics.
Leadership plays an important role in the success of any
*T&C apply
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INNOVATING WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES
How Finest Wireless Technolog Are Changing The Communication For W
ireless communications are one of the better domains of technology development of our time. This progress is being driven by the shift of what has been largely a medium for supporting voice telephony into a medium for supporting other services. The demand for new wireless capacity is growing at a quick pace. In the present day, the wireless communication system has become an important part of dierent types of wireless communication devices, which permit the user to communicate even from remote operated areas. There are many devices used for wireless communication like mobiles, Cordless telephones, GPS, Wi-Fi, satellite television and wireless computer parts. Current wireless phones include 3G and 4G networks, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies.
Let's see how the following emerging communication technologies are going to make the communication systems better and eďŹƒcient to use. 5G Enables High-Speed Internet for Masses The 5G cellular technology is upon us, we might see 5G get adapted in major cities by the end of 2019 or at the beginning of next year. The technology supposed to compliment Wi-Fi as the speed of the internet is going to improve by the introduction of 5G. The speed is not the
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only thing that 5G is going to provide as its prices are going to be economical. The evolution of 5G will help in setting high-speed internet services for individuals and organizations on the Internet of Things and low latency applications. Vehicle-to-Everything Wireless (V2X) Compulsory in Future for All Vehicles V2X wireless system will allow normal and autonomous cars to communicate with each other and with the infrastructure on the route. This new technology will help in gathering and exchanging information related to safety, navigation, and infotainment. With the development of selfdriven cars catching up the speed we might see V2X be made compulsory in the future for all the vehicles. But, this system needs hi-speed internet service to work. Long Range Wireless Power to Replace Power Cables The long-range wireless power someday in the future going to replace the power cables from electronic appliances like computers, mobiles, and gadgets used in the kitchen. But, the initial wireless power systems were not that successful in providing the experience that the users expected. The information that is available combined with current technology will help to redesign the communication system
gies
r Better
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INNOVATING WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES
that will fit into living spaces. Previously, the device needed to be kept in a certain place, which is a slight improvement on the cable charging devices. Low Power Wide Area Networks Provide Long-range Wireless Connectivity Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) technology come up as a phrase in 2013 not as a new technology standard, but rather as a category of wireless technologies that are well suited to the specific needs of machine-to-machine and IoT devices. Most of IoT devices, especially those in cities and industrial sectors, don't require the same speed and bandwidth of consumer cellular devices. LPWA Network (LPWAN) technologies enhance the business case for IoT solutions, offering a cost and power-efficient wireless option that leverages existing networks, global reach, and strong builtin security. Wireless Sensing Enforce Effective Communication A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) can be specified as a network of devices that can communicate the information gathered from a monitored field through wireless links. The data is moved forward through different nodes and with a gateway, the data is connected to other networks like wireless Ethernet. WSN is a wireless network that includes base stations and numbers of nodes (wireless sensors). Networks are used to monitor physical or environmental conditions like sound, pressure, temperature and cooperatively pass data through the network to the main location. Enhanced Wireless Location Tracking is Precise Wireless communication systems are used to sense the locations of the devices connected to them. The highly accurate tracking system can precisely locate the device up to one meter. The data generated from the device can be used in different business areas like marketing, channel management and the Internet of Things. Millimetre-Wave Wireless Provide High Speed at Lower Frequency The improvement in technologies over the past decade has allowed the widespread use of millimeter-wave to address the challenges of lower frequency and high-speed communications. The evolution of network technologies from 1G to 5G has taken almost five decades from 1G in the 1980s to 5G in the 2020s. The possibility of achieving
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data rates of up to 10 gigabits per second, where the data rates are restricted to less than 1 gigabit per second in microwave frequencies has increased. The application of millimeter waves to automotive radar solutions, high-speed point-to-point communication, streaming high-resolution videos, and carry large amounts of data. Backscatter Networking Leveraging Existing RF Signal Resources Backscatter communication technology has been introduced recently. It is becoming a go-to choice for self-sustainable communication systems as an external power supply or a dedicated carrier emitter is not required. By using existing RF signal resources, backscatter technology can support sustainable and independent communications and consequently open up a whole new set of applications that facilitate Internet-of-Things. Software-Defined Radio making it Assessable for All Software-defined radio is an RF communication system that incorporates a significant amount of this software-based signal-processing functionality. It is a concept according to which RF communication is achieved by using software to perform signal-processing tasks that are typically performed by hardware. This communication system provides a vehicle for carefully analyzing RF signals and experimenting with modulation and decoding techniques. It also makes custom RF communication systems more accessible to those who have limited experience with RF design. Wi-Fi 6 More Reliable with Speed Wi-Fi 6 will ultimately enhance the experience for all wireless users, from office workers, who will find that their devices communicate more securely and quickly in crowded offices, to people supporting constellations of IoT devices. Customers will find that they can pack more lowpower devices into a space with fewer access points. Wireless communications globally are something that people can expect as technology advances. Wireless communications have a lot of benefits and can make the world a lot more efficient. It does have concerns though as with every other new advancement that is made in today's world. The difficulties with security regarding access to a person's personal information or the negative impact that it may seem to have on society are a few things that are keeping back the progress that wireless technology could be making.
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