In an interesting development today, Dexplora got their iOS app GetSalesDone approved for salesforce.com. For those you who haven't heard of Dexplora before - it's a Swedish startup, formed by a former founder of The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), the company that contributed a lot to the current Android UI and got acquired by the then RIM 2 years ago and added a lot of their ideas to the current Blackberry 10 user experience.
I am not surprised that when looking for something as a new challenge, the crew ended up in CRM. And given the importance of mobile coupled with the TAT expertise in mobile - to pick a mobile sales application. It turns out that sales people are one of most fickle user groups to build a business application for - because they are 'voluntary' users. No contributing sales rep will be terminated for not using a CRM application... instead the reluctance of sales reps to use a new CRM application is one of the main contributors to the over 50% failure rate why CRM applications fail.
The pitch caters to the sales rep...
The problem with CRM UIX is - that it always starts easy - and clean - but then gets complicated... Just in the demo, Dexplora skirts (and it would be interesting if they have added the functionality and it was just cut from the demo video for time reasons) adding products to the opportunity, the creation of a sales team, mentioning the competition. These are staples of basic opportunity management. On the nice task / delegation functionality - it skirted the more complex UIX to delegate task to different users - on and off the sales team. And we are not talking about creating the opportunity from a lead, converting opportunity data elements to a quote or proposal, splitting the opportunity, forecasting on it etc. But let's be fair - it's a promising start. But it always starts easy...
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There are some innovative UIX ideas in the demo - like pull down the list of entities and then release to create a new entity. The activity flow of the opportunity demos great:
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[Inserted] The app also uses some of the newer screen animations see here, which increase the 'fun' factor using an app:
The other interesting aspect is, that Dexplora focused on the UIX only. The whole business functionality resides in salesforce. Pure UIX layers can add significant value for users - not only in CRM but take e.g. NorthgateArinso's euHReka HCM product that provides a user friendly front end to SAP R/3. The good news here seems to be that salesforce welcomes work like Dexplora's as it fits into their 'platform' strategy. On the flip side - we all know: Who owns the eyes of the users, owns their wallets (or the software license - ultimately). If you get sales people to use an application for it's great UIX and they get 'hooked' to it - they don't care where the APIs run into ... a salesforce, a Siebel, a Oracle Fusion CRM, a mySAP CRM. This is ultimately not in the interest of these vendors.
MyPOV: A very talented group of UIX people is tackling one of the toughest UIX areas - CRM and mobile.
I am not surprised that when looking for something as a new challenge, the crew ended up in CRM. And given the importance of mobile coupled with the TAT expertise in mobile - to pick a mobile sales application. It turns out that sales people are one of most fickle user groups to build a business application for - because they are 'voluntary' users. No contributing sales rep will be terminated for not using a CRM application... instead the reluctance of sales reps to use a new CRM application is one of the main contributors to the over 50% failure rate why CRM applications fail.
The pitch caters to the sales rep...
We turn the CRM from reporting into planning, so you can focus more on what you will do rather than what you've done. And our app shows activities you can do to achieve better results. Our ambition is that you should get your bonus with less hassle. And it's elegant and easy to use, something most CRM systems can only dream of. Currently we support Salesforce and iPhone, but expect more.So Dexplora built a very clean iOS app that shows in this video the creation of an account, contact, opportunity and the creation of a task that nicely flows from iPhone to iPhone to desktop and inevitably ends with the successful closure of a sales opportunity. As an ironic sidenote - a Samsung business card is the start of the demo (on iOS and previous company was sold to Blackberry - coincidence? Or a pitch to the new Samsung VC fund?). And as we talk on curiosities - the demo creates ''Metis Samsung" - are we talking about the titan goddess of good counsel, craftiness and wisdom? Or a person born to parents who belong to different groups defined by visible effects (Dexplora and salesforce)? Both apply!
The problem with CRM UIX is - that it always starts easy - and clean - but then gets complicated... Just in the demo, Dexplora skirts (and it would be interesting if they have added the functionality and it was just cut from the demo video for time reasons) adding products to the opportunity, the creation of a sales team, mentioning the competition. These are staples of basic opportunity management. On the nice task / delegation functionality - it skirted the more complex UIX to delegate task to different users - on and off the sales team. And we are not talking about creating the opportunity from a lead, converting opportunity data elements to a quote or proposal, splitting the opportunity, forecasting on it etc. But let's be fair - it's a promising start. But it always starts easy...
There are some innovative UIX ideas in the demo - like pull down the list of entities and then release to create a new entity. The activity flow of the opportunity demos great:
[Inserted] The app also uses some of the newer screen animations see here, which increase the 'fun' factor using an app:
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| All screenshots courtesy of Dexplora |
The other interesting aspect is, that Dexplora focused on the UIX only. The whole business functionality resides in salesforce. Pure UIX layers can add significant value for users - not only in CRM but take e.g. NorthgateArinso's euHReka HCM product that provides a user friendly front end to SAP R/3. The good news here seems to be that salesforce welcomes work like Dexplora's as it fits into their 'platform' strategy. On the flip side - we all know: Who owns the eyes of the users, owns their wallets (or the software license - ultimately). If you get sales people to use an application for it's great UIX and they get 'hooked' to it - they don't care where the APIs run into ... a salesforce, a Siebel, a Oracle Fusion CRM, a mySAP CRM. This is ultimately not in the interest of these vendors.
MyPOV: A very talented group of UIX people is tackling one of the toughest UIX areas - CRM and mobile.
- Tacticaly they can make difference to sales people's productivty. Also note how the pitch caters to the sales rep, not the sales manager, the IT manager etc. If done right the getsalesdone app may go viral very, very fast and be a phenomenon as a viralsocial app in the B2B space.
- On the strategic side: If they succeed, they may be able to create a new software category - the UIX software vendors. The enterprise vendors won't like that - at the end of the day.