Companies with a mobile sales force face a difficult choice between productivity and selling. The more salespeople are on the road visiting clients, the better the chances of closing the deal. However, at the same time, productivity (travelling time, communication with management, collaboration with back-office) is taking a hit.
"Mobile sales need to stay in touch with headquarters and access shared docs and systems in an easy and cost effective way".
Ideally sales executives would like to have the best of both worlds:
* Increase productivity (read emails, access shared files and documents in the office, access internal CRMs and databases)
* Increase chances of closing the deal (access to company resources and marketing documents from clients' premises)
* While, of course, maintaining cost down with something simple to use and maintain.
Remote Connectivity.
Like most companies with a large number of sales personnel, there is not enough office space to support one desk/computer per person; instead each salesperson has a laptop and books a hot desk in advance when planning to go to the main office. Booking a space is available via shared secretaries or directly by using an Intranet application.
The main challenges facing the sales team are:
- * Use MS Outlook for emails and other collaborative tools in Microsoft Exchange server/Zimbra
- * Due to time differences, directly book office space and meeting rooms on the Intranet
- * Access clients marketing resources, such as CRM and presentations, directly from clients offices
- * Update journal logs and timesheets after clients visits
SSL VPN - The Solution
SSL VPN is installed on one computer in the office (it can be any computer,but Linux-Novell® Suse is preferred for rock hard stability, ease of use and no virus problems- but in this case it's a PC used for files sharing) and connected with a business 25-user account. Every salesperson is assigned a login and authorized to connect to this instance.
For redundancy and fault-tolerance purposes, it is also installed on another computer with the same setup so that users can connect to either without any changes in configuration.
Sales have access to the office network every time they start their laptop (some users decided to manually connect/disconnect the VPN because they sometimes use their laptops for personal surfing).
To them nothing is different from when they are in the office, all their applications and shortcuts works in exactly the same fashion:
* MS Outlook automatically connects to the Exchange server/Zimbra in the office so they can directly read and manage emails (read/write, use draft templates, rules on incoming emails and TODO lists)
* Remote access to team calendars where they can create new entries or check when the next sales meeting is
* Book an office space using the Intranet application directly from the web browser on their laptop using their normal shortcuts and favorites
* Start PowerPoint presentations from the centralized repository and remotely access the internal customers' CRM system from their hotel or directly from the clients premises
* Remotely update clients' journal logs after each customer's visit so that back office and other front office staff can deal with clients' requests as they happen
Finally, some senior executive managers prefer to connect to their office desktop and run reports. To do so they login to their remote desktop directly from a web browser without installing SSL VPN locally. This gives them the freedom to follow-up on the daily business from any computer when they don't carry their laptops around.
Remote Access - The Advantages
Sales executives want salesmen to use their laptops as if they were in the office. They do not want salesmen to change their habits by using alternative systems or environments when on the move and thus waste time learning new systems.
IT managers have a cost-effective and secure remote access solution that is simple to implement, deploy and with a fast learning curve. They also provide a robust and redundant VPN to connect to the office without bearing the cost of implementing firewalls and other DMZ setups.
By using SSL VPN, both sales and IT managers achieve their goals:
- * Increase market share by doing live presentations and increase productivity on the road
- * Leverage existing infrastructure and systems rather than getting yet another system that sales have got to learn
- * Fast, simple and reliable: SSL VPN is up & running in minutes, with load balancing and fault-tolerance without extra efforts or compromise on security and budget
