Founded in the 1940s, Gilson is a family owned manufacturer of innovative purification solutions for the life sciences industry. As the developer of the Pipetman Pipette, Gilson creates both manual and automated liquid handling products for its customers in academic research, pharmaceuticals, biotech, healthcare, hospitals, manufacturers, and environmental and government agencies.
The Challenge
Gilson has sales offices throughout the United States, China, and Europe. They already used Salesforce as their customer success platform in their US offices, but it was time to centralize their data for their entire organization as well as provide a CPQ tool for their European sales offices.
As a large manufacturer, Gilson needed a flexible solution in place that would offer a common CRM system for its global sales offices. Everyone, from CEO to field rep, needed to be working off of one central platform that would standardize data throughout their company.
They knew SaleforceCPQ was the solution that would give them the most flexibility, but they lacked the internal bandwidth to implement the tool successfully.
From the beginning, Mandy Febus, Global Customer Marketing Manager at Gilson, knew the project would be complex and extensive, so finding the right partner would be essential in their success.
Additionally, once the project was completed, the Gilson team wanted an ongoing relationship with a partner who could provide best practice recommendations, continue to solve problems, and offer ongoing support for future projects.
The Gilson marketing team wears many different hats, and they needed a partner who offered strong project management skills, clear and honest communication, and Salesforce expertise.
Their implementation partner’s ability to set and keep deadlines would also play a key role in Gilson’s success. Any delay in the project would affect the capabilities of the Gilson team to improve their sales process.
Why Penrod
When Gilson’s Salesforce Account Executive introduced Mandy to Penrod, she immediately saw a difference from other implementation partners she worked with in the past.
She was impressed by the number of Salesforce certifications Penrod employees have, certifications that deepen their knowledge of the Salesforce platform and increase their ability to help Salesforce users and admins be successful.
This extensive knowledge of the platform enabled Penrod to understand the challenges Gilson faced and helped them create innovative solutions to overcome those challenges.
A key to this, Mandy said, was the amount of time and effort Penrod put into the Discovery phase. This allowed Penrod to fully understand challenges Gilson faced and helped the Penrod team find ways Salesforce CPQ could overcome those challenges.
Each time Gilson came to Penrod with an obstacle they needed help overcoming, the Penrod team never needed to be told more than once before they got it. This deep understanding kept the implementation process moving quickly and helped ensure that Gilson had a powerful tool at their fingertips.
Beyond that, Penrod’s knowledge of best practices allowed them to make superior recommendations that further improved Gilson’s Salesforce CPQ.
Penrod also practiced clear, open, and honest communication that gave Mandy and her Gilson team confidence and trust in their partner. Penrod was able to quickly address issues that arose and find ways to improve how they worked with Gilson.
Gilson had constant access to their Penrod project manager to ensure they got help whenever they needed. Penrod’s responsiveness kept the project moving quickly and made sure all of Gilson’s needs were addressed in a timely manner.
Working with Penrod was a breath of fresh air, Mandy said.The team was knowledgeable and organized. They weren’t out for their own agenda, but instead were all about making Gilson successful. In the Powerup Program, their project manager stays on top of their projects to make sure everything is on track. They know she’s always there ready to dive in anytime a problem arises.
The Solution
Penrod implemented Salesforce CPQ as a scalable solution for Gilson to roll out to their global sales offices. The tool allows Gilson more internal control than other CPQ solutions.
On the backend, Penrod created flexibility that allowed Gilson to customize pricing, discounts, bundles, and options to their specific needs. This ensures that Gilson doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all solution but allows them to tailor the tool so it works for them.
On the frontend, users work through one streamlined process. Instead of jumping from tool to tool, field reps can pull data from one centralized location and move through the CPQ process faster.
To address Gilson’s need for an ongoing relationship with a Salesforce implementation partner, Penrod offered the Powerup Program.
The Powerup Program is a bucket of hours that Gilson uses for system enhancements. It provides them access to a dedicated project manager who can make changes as needed to their Salesforce instance.
Their project manager also constantly works to identify, prioritize and backlog future enhancements, keeping Gilson’s Salesforce organization consistently updated.
The Outcome
Gilson’s quote process takes half the time that it used to, thanks to Salesforce CPQ and Penrod. Because sales reps have a streamlined process to gather information and automate quotes, they’re able to send more quotes faster.
There’s not another partner they would turn to according to Mandy. They lean on Penrod for future changes and improvements to their Salesforce org, and Penrod’s deep knowledge of their Salesforce organization make finding ways to improve simple.
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