FiscalNote and OneTenth Partner For A Unified View Of The Customer
In late 2018, FiscalNote, a Washington DC based company that uses technology and data to enable organizations worldwide to analyze and manage political and advocacy issues key to their success, acquired CQ Roll Call - bringing together a rapidly growing start-up with one of the country’s most recognizable brands in nonpartisan journalism. FiscalNote offers award-winning journalism along with products and services that provide access to large quantities of data, news, and analysis for all levels of government to help corporations, associations, and nonprofits of all sizes manage their issues.
Prior to the acquisition, both FiscalNote and CQ Roll Call managed their accounts and pipeline in Salesforce. However, in order to operate as one company, the two CRM systems needed to be consolidated. While this may seem like a mere technical exercise of moving data from one system to another, it was in fact much broader than that, as Salesforce was used differently for both organizations to support very unique sales cycles.
Our Engagement
In early 2019, FiscalNote partnered with OneTenth Consulting to provide project management, business analysis, and strategic support for the Salesforce integration. While FiscalNote was well-staffed with Salesforce development and change management resources, OneTenth played the lead project management role, not only to coordinate tasks and timelines, but also to ensure stakeholders were communicated to and risks were mitigated.
OneTenth worked closely with FiscalNote staff to ensure the combined sales team was working from a common playbook, and that the system would support the new sales cycle. And while it was expected that data mapping would uncover questions the business would need to answer, it also uncovered the need for a shared terminology and consistent business processes. OneTenth helped facilitate these cross-organizational dialogues, understanding the needs and business processes of each department, documenting them, and translating them into technical design - all while keeping Salesforce best practices in mind.
Throughout the course of the next six months, FiscalNote and OneTenth worked closely together throughout the business process re-alignment, data migration, and training of the system.
Today, FiscalNote is operating out of one Salesforce system and has one unified view of the customer.
Technology & Tools
FiscalNote is using the Salesforce Sales Cloud module, and as part of this initiative introduced the CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) feature to bring structure and consistency across the sales process. FiscalNote also uses Marketo for its marketing automation needs, leveraging the native Salesforce integration.
Conclusion
While OneTenth has played the traditional role of system implementer for many CRM implementations, the partnership with FiscalNote demonstrated OneTenth’s “staff augmentation” service, allowing FiscalNote to leverage their strengths and for OneTenth to fill in the gaps where needed - whether it was providing project management, business analysis, or strategic guidance - all as one team.
“Rubin’s work and partnership was instrumental to the success of our Salesforce integration,” said Ben Malakoff, Senior Director of Sales Operations at FiscalNote and project lead for the Salesforce integration. “His knowledge, experience and collaborative style were an asset. We would absolutely work with him again.”
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OneTenth Consulting has a full range of services exclusively - from strategic services to CRM selection, to CRM implementation and change management. OneTenth empowers nonprofits and mission-driven organizations by aligning their organizational, fundraising, and technology strategies - providing the tools and insight they need to meet their goals and achieve their mission. Check out OneTenth’s services and schedule a “no pressure” phone consultation today!