Selligent daily for Viamédia
The Viamédia advertising sales agency was originally dedicated to the Télégramme regional daily. In 2001, it opened up to outside publishers. The new needs emanating from the rapid expansion of its business let the company to home in on CRM in 2005. Today, Viamédia has around 100 Selligent users.
Patrick RichardGeneral Manager
“After a detailed analysis, Selligent came out as clearly the best suited and the most flexible. In addition, Viamédia was won over by the principle of a Web access solution – a modern and future-oriented approach.”
“In a competitive and constantly evolving market, you have to be able to manage the business with much more precision, analyse the reasons for a backslide and have reliable indicators at your fingertips so as to respond appropriately when the company is going through a difficult patch. With Selligent, we are better equipped to extend our company’s growth.”
Viamédia sells advertising space for some 20 Web and press organs. It is also publisher or joint-publisher of specials such as the Route du Rhum programme. Viamédia started out as an integrated department of the Télégramme regional daily, but in 2001 became a distinct company serving not only the Télégramme and the group’s other publications but also outside publishers seeking a presence in Western France. This development led to an expansion of the number of publications served, a wide variety of production cycles and the need to integrate new teams of people. That is when the agency started to think about CRM.
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Supporting growth
Viamédia Director General, Patrick Richard, points out that “our company is set to grow quite fast, geographically and in the number of media covered. To support and enhance that growth, we have to be able to home in on our advertiser clients so as to link them to our publisher clients. To do that, we need a software system that can adapt to the specifics of our business, enables us to centralise information and maintains our teams’ autonomy.” So in early 2005, the first stage of the project started up – analysis of the internal issues and examining the needs. The outcome of this stage was a set of specifications. That is when Viamédia went in search of the software that responded to the identified needs. Three candidates made the grade.
Real consensus
Despite an initial inclination to give preference to the tool proposed by a candidate that was already one of the group’s suppliers, the Selligent solution won the day after a detailed analysis. “Selligent was the unanimous choice,” Richard underscored. “The project team drew up a table of the benefits and drawbacks of each of the solutions presented, and Selligent came out as clearly the best suited and the most flexible. In addition, we were won over by the Web access solution – a modern and future-oriented approach.”
A two-step introduction
Implementation by the Brest-based integrator Asten started in the summer of 2005, and around 100 Selligent X@ users were up and running by early 2006. User adoption was immediate. But then, the company had prepared the teams well when the software was installed, and they all understood the advantages of the tool. According to Richard, “the users were really looking forward to the system, and they were full of enthusiasm at the end of the training sessions. Today, Selligent plays a real role in the daily lives of our teams.” To ease the transition, Viamédia set up a hot line to help users overcome their teething troubles, and a user ‘bible’ was produced. “But as far as I’m concerned, we are still in the adjustment phase,” he states. “This is partly because some users have more problems than others with IT in general, and partly as a result of the application’s wealth of function.” In fact, because of this functional breadth, Viamédia decided to progress in stages to gradually build up the Selligent system into a full-feature tool, a key element in the whole Viamédia organisation. In all likelihood, the original timetable will be fully respected.
A unified view of information
Integrating Viamédia’s client database was a smooth operation. But once all the data was in the system, the company discovered problems that had not previously been noticed – only 20% to 30% of information on the 30,000 or so active clients in the database were correct. Meanwhile, a lot of effort has gone into updating the information, and now Viamédia has a global view of its clients, their advertising schedules and their budget breakdown for the different media. Selligent also guarantees that the sales force uses the right rates and the right sales points. That is because the sales reps can use it to find all the price lists, all the sales pitches, all the information on the full range of media, survey results and much more. These elements are made available by Marketing in real time, whereas before they were updated only once a year. Adds Richard, “in a widely scattered team, when you update a paper document you can never be sure that the change reaches everyone. In this respect, Selligent is clearly a step forward. Only the latest version of a file is accessible.”
In-depth support
After only six months of usage, Viamédia is not yet in a position to come up with a credible ROI analysis. However, it is clear that Selligent has enabled them to target its clients more precisely and deal with them more proficiently. “To be effective, we have to understand the expectations of the advertisers and analyse their trends for the different media. Today, when a publisher asks us for the precise status of active and potential advertisers, we are in a position to provide it quickly and in a format that corresponds to their specific demands. And the more information we have, the more we can drill down and get to know our clients better.” There can be no doubt that this approach will enable Viamédia to win the trust of new publishers. Furthermore, Selligent has also become the management steering tool, with the result that no management meeting now takes place without the application on the table. “In a competitive and constantly evolving market, you have to be able to manage the business with much more precision, analyse the reasons for a backslide and have reliable indicators at your fingertips so as to respond appropriately when the company is going through a difficult patch. With Selligent, we are better equipped to extend our company’s growth,” Richard states.
Prepared for phase II
By the end of 2006, the Viamédia CRM project will have taken another major step forward with the integration of sales targets in the system. As a result, the annual targets will be aligned with the sales action plans, which are already managed by Selligent. “To make sure the information is consistent, it is important that the available functions be used by everyone. So this new phase will be an opportunity to run a new training cycle. Then, depending on the results, we can plan new developments,” Richard adds.
A first-rate project
Today, Patrick Richard is convinced he has made the right choice. The deadlines were met, and so were the specs. The training sessions were very effective, and the team is satisfied. The company performs better, is more proficient and holds all the cards to achieve its growth targets. “That makes me confident in our future growth,” Richard concludes.
