Online Wholesale Automotive Auction Company OPENLANE Uses Force.com to Build Multiple Custom Apps in Half the Time Required by O
17 September 2009 - 10:00PM
PR Newswire (US)
Custom applications for customer inquiries, arbitrations,
collections, and more, all built using Force.com and created to
meet OPENLANE's growth trajectory and specific business needs SAN
FRANCISCO, Sept. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE:
CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced that
OPENLANE, Inc., an industry leading online auction company for
automotive dealers to buy and sell wholesale vehicles, is greatly
improving its business success with the use of Force.com. OPENLANE
leveraged the Force.com enterprise cloud computing platform to
integrate different enterprise systems to easily share dealer
information across internal groups, and also developed multiple
custom applications to support its rapidly growing business.
Building on Force.com enabled OPENLANE to complete its custom
development faster than it would have required with on-premise
development. (Logo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO) "As we
built our company, we originally utilized on premise enterprise
software and systems that weren't ideally suited for our business,"
said Andrew Iorgulescu, Vice President of Business and Dealer
Development at OPENLANE. "As the company grew, we sought out the
flexibility of a cloud computing solution and began to utilize
Salesforce CRM to manage and enhance our relationships with
dealers. After implementing functionality to manage dealer
relationships, we began to add other processes in order to drive
customer intimacy to higher levels. Designing and building custom
applications on the Force.com platform had significant appeal when
we realized it could be done more quickly and at significantly less
cost than we expected. The results are greater levels of
responsiveness and service for our rapidly growing dealer base."
Today, OPENLANE has custom solutions for dealer sales, customer
inquiries, vehicle arbitrations, collections, and more -- all built
using Force.com and created to meet the company's specific business
needs. Further, both Salesforce CRM (http://www.salesforce.com/)
and the custom applications were fully integrated with the industry
leading OPENLANE auction platforms, SAP financials and other legacy
database systems. "Salesforce CRM and Force.com have been integral
in helping us to optimize our business, and we've even added some
applications from the AppExchange and a Customer Portal to gain
additional benefits," commented Iorgulescu. "We now have a solution
that integrates multiple customer touch points across several
systems into one efficient platform. This solution allows our
internal development teams to focus their efforts on enhancing
OPENLANE's unique auction platforms while delivering a better
experience for our dealer customers." Force.com - the Industry's
Leading Enterprise Cloud Computing Platform: -- Force.com is
salesforce.com's enterprise cloud computing platform
(http://www.salesforce.com/platform/cloud-platform/) -- Force.com
provides everything companies need to quickly build and deliver
business applications in the cloud, including the database,
unlimited real-time customization, powerful analytics, real-time
workflow and approvals, programmable cloud logic, integration,
real-time mobile deployment, programmable user interface and Web
site capabilities -- Customers and partners have built more than
120,000 custom applications on Force.com to run their businesses,
including, supply chain management, compliance tracking, brand
management, accounts receivable, claims processing, time-off
applications and much more -- Force.com enables companies to build
and deliver applications 5 times faster, at about the cost of
traditional client/server software platforms:
http://www.salesforce.com/platform/tco/ -- Here's a video on how to
get started building apps on Force.com:
http://www.youtube.com/user/sfdcMktg#play/uploads/24/QkRbzd3vxHU
OPENLANE is one of the 63,200 companies of all sizes, industries
and geographies that comprised the salesforce.com customer base as
of July 31, 2009. Revenue and subscribers will be recognized as the
service is delivered. About OPENLANE OPENLANE, Inc. is a leading
online auction company in North America for automotive dealers to
buy and sell wholesale vehicles. The company offers end-to-end auto
remarketing solutions to auto manufacturers, captive finance
companies, lease and daily rental companies, financial institutions
and wholesale auto auctions throughout the United States and
Canada. OPENLANE powers online remarketing programs for American
Honda Finance, Audi Financial Services, Avis Budget Group, Chase
Auto Finance, Chrysler Financial, Porsche Financial Services,
Volkswagen Credit, among others. For more information, please visit
http://www.openlane.com/ or call +1 (866) 969-0321. About
Salesforce.com Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing
company. The company's portfolio of Salesforce CRM applications,
available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has
revolutionized the ways that companies collaborate and communicate
with their customers across sales, marketing and service. The
company's Force.com platform (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/)
helps customers, partners and developers to quickly build powerful
business applications to run every part of the enterprise in the
cloud. Based on salesforce.com's real-time, multitenant
architecture, Salesforce CRM and Force.com offer the fastest path
to customer success with cloud computing. As of July 31, 2009,
salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately
62,300 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Dow Jones
Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other
press releases or public statements are not currently available and
may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase
salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions
based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com
has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia,
and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol
"CRM". For more information please visit
http://www.salesforce.com/, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE. Copyright
(c) 2009 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce and
the "no software" logo are registered trademarks of salesforce.com,
inc., and salesforce.com owns other registered and unregistered
trademarks. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their
respective owners.
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO
http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: salesforce.com CONTACT:
Gordon Evans of salesforce.com, +1-415-536-7608, Web Site:
http://www.salesforce.com/ http://www.openlane.com/
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