“Soon after joining PlayPower, I was tasked with bringing all brands under one umbrella from a sales and marketing automation systems perspective,” said Danielle Kiess, Marketing Automation and CRM Manager at PlayPower. “I knew from the start that this consolidation was going to be a very challenging project.”

PlayPower began with six of its brands for the build-out of the consolidated systems. “The thinking was that we would develop the architecture and processes, launch the initial six brands, and then potentially bring in the others after,” said Kiess. The key areas that were scoped out as part of this initial deployment were lead assignment and data management for each brand.

Incorporating multiple brands under the PlayPower umbrella gives the parent company a comprehensive offering but posed some problems. “The challenge with consolidation was that some of the brands, while part of PlayPower, can under some circumstances be seen as competitors in the industry. This meant that we had to ensure that protections were put in place to securely partition each brand within unified instances of Salesforce and Eloqua,” said Kiess.

Another factor that added to the project’s complexity was that two CRM instances were going to be merged. “What made this particularly difficult was that the instances of Salesforce, which were running in parallel, were active systems with many users,” said Kiess.

1. Develop a Strategy to Capture Leads Across All Brands
   “MASS Engines worked out the optimal way for us to capture leads in Eloqua, for each of the different brands, then move them into Salesforce,” said Kiess. She continued, Kiess continued, “The MASS Engines team was incredibly helpful with all aspects of the project, but especially in helping to sort out the tangle of data that was found as the MASS Engines team sorted out the architecture and automation needed for new instances of Eloqua and Salesforce that would support six brands. MASS Engines also ensured that the consolidation of the two Salesforce instances did not impact active users.”
2. Comprehensive Lead Assignment System
   Playworld needed a lead assignment system that would work for all brands to manage leads in Eloqua and Salesforce. Lead assignment was very complex, because of the size and scale of the data. “The MASS Engines team recommended that we create a database based on geography as this was the most efficient way to parse leads across brands and sales teams,” said Kiess. Based on MASS Engines’ recommendation, the PlayPower team pulled together the latest assignment data and developed a SQL database independent of Salesforce. “The database solution that MASS recommended provided the foundation for our lead assignments. Despite its size, more than 5.5 million rows, it proved to be a very flexible solution. It not only feeds Eloqua and Salesforce, but we also use it to enhance our website by enabling customers to search for a sales rep,” said Kiess.
3. Securing Lead and Customer Data by Brand
   PlayPower wanted a single, unified instance for Eloqua and Salesforce, so partitioning and protecting each brand’s lead and customer data was of paramount importance. A number of steps were taken to ensure that access to data was strictly enforced. MASS Engines set up the contact-level security to seperate brand data. “As an added level of protection, MASS Engines created integrations between Eloqua and Salesforce to separate lead data by brand,” said Kiess.

“We were very pleased with MASS Engines’ ability to blend existing and new solutions for our systems.” Kiess continued to explain, “They were instrumental in helping us improve automation and functionality in Eloqua and Salesforce across the six brands while enabling separate distributor management capabilities. We now have one consolidated system with closely aligned solutions for each brand. MASS Engines also helped us develop a solid foundation for robust reporting capabilities across the brands.”

“MASS Engines demonstrated deep expertise throughout the engagement, and it seemed as if they were my colleagues, not outside consultants. But, what truly sets them apart is their flexibility,” said Kiess.