Oracle

With over 40,000 employees and 10 billion in annual revenues, Oracle is truly one of the behemoths of the software industry. While they have diversified their products and services, they have remained true to their core business which is database software and applications.

The annual get-together of the Oracle Applications User Group is a spectacle to behold- the number attendees rivaling major industry conferences. Besides the numerous sideshows and entertainment value of the event, it is also an important educational and promotional opportunity for users and vendors alike.

Footing the majority of the bill, Oracle wanted to improve their ROI by getting prospects to attend from new divisions within companies that already used Oracle. CCI faced the challenge of reaching these prospects without permission to enlist the help of the Oracle database managers populating the client list. Being a critical concern, the highest echelons of Oracle were said to be keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings.

After ramping up to over twenty callers within a week, CCI successfully carried out over fifteen thousand calls over one thousand hours without incident. At over $2,500 per attendee, CCI sold over $800,000 in registrations. The cost to Oracle for this project was $50,000- giving them a $750,000 ROI on the campaign.

Extricity

Extricity provided a platform for developing enterprise-scale e-commerce and supply-chain integration applications. They focused mostly on the banking, finance, and retail industries. Extricity was acquired by Peregrine Systems and is now a defunct entity.

While they were still an independent company, we had the pleasure of assisting them with a wide variety of projects that at times involved co-marketing arrangements with Manugistics, IBM, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and Cisco Systems among others.

Identifying companies that fit their target market presented a key challenge. Although they had access to standard prospect lists, they needed to know which companies actually transacted business over the web.

Using a combination of phone and Internet research, we developed a database of 20,000 executive-level and technical contacts at companies that relied on Internet-based systems for supply-chain management, logistics, and other business transactions.

Hughes

Located in Hyderabad, India, HSS is a recently formed sub-division of Hughes Networking Systems. Specializing in building sophisticated communications systems that span land to air or space, HSS needed help finding clients for their thousands of software engineers located in their newly constructed multi-million dollar campus.

Lacking any name recognition (other than that of the parent company) or track record, CCI’s agents faced particularly high hurdles to overcome representing HSS. Prospects, mostly VPs of Engineering at manufacturing companies, were highly suspicious and reticent to divulge information fearing they might fall prey to some sort of competitive intelligence gathering ploy.

CCI’s consultative approach fit perfectly with the needs of this project. After one thousand hours and twelve thousand calls, we generated over one hundred and fifty short-term opportunities for HSS’s services and software. Initially estimated at $600 per lead, we achieved an average cost per lead of only $350.

Very happy with the results, HSS renewed the project and even gave serious consideration to flying the entire team of callers to India for three months of technical training.