Page 190 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

MANA GEMENT STRATEGIES F O R THE CL OUD R EV OL UTION

application that they can use (after they sign up for a Salesforce
.com account). Sokolic shows the added value of the network
by asking for a type of pension or retirement fund manager
that the advisor would like to contact. He then directs his cus-
tomer CRM app “to pull 1,200 names into a lead prospect list”
that meets those criteria. “It’s a major ‘Wow!’ for them. Such a

list doesn’t exist anywhere else,” he said.
Sokolic said that his firm will keep producing custom tools
for his network members’ CRM app. The resulting application
runs in the cloud like one of Salesforce.com’s own, but it gives
the advisor leverage that other advisors without the same tools
don’t have. Sokolic’s success at using the cloud to extend what
his six-year-old firm can do has resulted in National Retire-

ment coming in at number two on Inc. magazine’s list of 500
fastest-growing companies in 2009. It was number 97 in 2008.
National Retirement uses a customized CRM application
as a major recruiting tool to bring advisors into its network.
The members of the network, in turn, share some data and
best practices with National Retirement, enhancing the San
Juan Capistrano firm’s big-picture knowledge of the market.
Sokolic doesn’t have a big IT budget or staff with which
to do this. On the contrary, he has a staff of three. Without

the assistance of the cloud platform, he could not be nearly
as competitive as he is in the investment advisor market. With
the Salesforce.com cloud services, National Retirement is
able to achieve a crucial degree of integration with its 150
independent network members that it could never have
achieved if it needed to integrate systems in 150 different

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