Overview
Pernod Ricard – the world’s second-largest wine and spirits seller – is headquartered in Paris, France. It was created by the merger of two French anise-based spirits companies, Pernod (founded in 1805) and Ricard (founded by Paul Ricard in 1932). The company built a unique portfolio of premium international brands, becoming one of the broadest amongst those within the wine and spirits industry. With more than 18,000 employees worldwide, Pernod Ricard has 85 direct affiliates worldwide and 101 production sites.
Challenges
Pernod Ricard implemented Salesforce in 2013 to manage their client interactions. For collaboration and communication, the company uses Microsoft Exchange and Office 365.
After implementing Salesforce, the company struggled with data synchronization and searched for a solution to their CRM data automation issues, which included the need to integrate Salesforce with their email system and iPad devices.
To manage customer communications, the sales representatives use a customized sales application designed for iPads. To do this effectively, they needed a tool that would sync customer appointments and contacts between Office 365 and Salesforce. This data sync also had to happen in real-time and directly from the user’s iPad device.
iPads are used heavily by the Pernod Ricard staff to communicate with customers – including the Pernod retail stores – regarding product orders, product inventory, customer/retailer feedback and training, internal sales meetings, sales reporting, and forecasting. Having visibility to the customer data being synched to iPads and access to calendar data was critical for Pernod Ricard.
After researching and testing numerous solutions, Pernod Ricard chose Riva via an internal recommendation. Other solutions – like client plug-ins and desktop applications – were tested but did not meet the company’s requirements.
Pernod Ricard went with Riva because it offers a reliable server-side solution with a fast, straightforward installation and configuration.
Solution
Riva is now used to sync Salesforce and Microsoft Exchange for 200 users throughout several Pernod Ricard affiliates in EMEA ranging from the UK, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Austria to Germany and Switzerland.
The company decided upon Riva because they did not want to host and maintain their own servers – a big advantage for the technical team.
Riva has relieved all of Pernod Ricard’s sync challenges and provides reliable, server-side data automation for their CRM and email systems, including:
- seamless integration of calendar and appointment data from their iPad devices to Salesforce;
- synchronization of recurring calendar events;
- sales reps can create contacts in CRM, access, and edit the data on their mobile devices;
- custom field mapping: Customer appointments are related to a certain account name and/or a specific contact name and are mapped to the appointment subject field in Outlook.
“We would highly recommend solving your CRM, email, or other third-party application data automation challenge with Riva and the Riva team,” stated Tim Wood, Technical Architect, Pernod Ricard.
Pernod Ricard is very impressed by Riva’s reliable, robust, and server-side solution. They very much appreciate the fact that there was no end-user training required, and the user-adoption was automatic. In fact, Riva has that “extra something” acquired over many years of experience helping customers and partners integrate the world’s leading CRM and email systems.
Pernod Ricard experienced excellent, fast, reliable, and knowledgeable support from the Riva staff. The Riva team went the extra mile to offer help and support during Pernod Richard’s migration from Microsoft Exchange to Office 365, even though it was not directly Riva-related.
Results
Riva enables Pernod Ricard’s sales team to work more efficiently in Salesforce, Microsoft Exchange, and iPads. There is a clear value add to the company as a result of Riva. Sales representatives can work more efficiently, concentrate on customer communications (which are now greatly improved with Riva), and minimize administrative work.
Field-based sales representatives and other customer-facing employees in the office and those working in the retail stores now have access to up-to-date and relevant customer information at all times, from all locations and all devices. The result? A much happier team with instant access to valuable customer insights allows them to provide excellent customer service. They are now more efficient and able to complete more tasks in less time.
Pernod Ricard’s IT staff does not have to install, configure, or maintain client applications, nor does it have to host additional servers.
“We at Pernod Ricard are delighted with Riva – from the initial installation and implementation to the technical support – We are a happy customer for more than four years now,” said Wood.
