Cerus Corporation, a biomedical company with a global customer base, had been struggling with making the best use out of their Marketing and Sales strategies.

What were some of the challenges you encountered before implementing Showpad’s Sales enablement platform?

Before we adopted Showpad, we were struggling with how we did Marketing. We did not have any control over the use of our collaterals. Everything was paper-based, and so I felt that I could not control the Salespeople when they were delivering messages. I wanted something that gave me control and that’s really what drove me towards Showpad.

What characteristics were you looking for in a Sales enablement platform?

We were looking for a system that helped us by giving more control over our Marketing approach. We did some prospecting and we checked a couple of solutions and it was pretty clear to us that Showpad was a very attractive solution to us on paper. We invited Showpad to do a demo, and we did that in the presence of the whole senior management team. It took them just one hour to conclude that this looked very attractive, and that’s what we went for.

Did you experience any changes? If so what were they?

Yes, since we started using Showpad a lot has changed on the Marketing and on the Sales side. On the Sales side, obviously there is much more visibility on how Salespeople are using materials. By the way, it’s not only Sales because we have other functions as well that have access to the Showpad platform. So we really know what they’re doing, not only in terms of frequency, we also know what kind of materials they use, which ones they find popular. That to me is a big change. I know that they’re using the right things when they have Sales calls.

Did you find that Showpad was saving you money?

There is a saving on the print cost. We had everything in print. We have almost nothing in print. The only thing we print is invitations to symposia. That’s all. So we are really paperless. That’s a saving obviously. I would say the biggest one that I would quantify as something that is meaningful is the speed with which we can bring things to the market. Where it took us in the past sometimes two months to get an idea on paper, and then print it and in the hands of our Salespeople, we have examples where we could actually turn around in a couple of hours. That is unseen, and the value to the Salespeople and how we can engage our customers, I don’t think you can even quantify that. It’s just incredible.

What has resulted from the implementation of Showpad?

Since we started to use Showpad, we have done things differently. I think Showpad is a platform that pushes us to excellence. So rather than we using Showpad, it’s Showpad pushing us. And as I said, we are much faster now. We can turn things around in hours or days. That’s an important thing in our industry, which is a healthcare industry, we sometimes have news that is very relevant that we need to push out.

Can you give an example when  having Showpad was especially useful?

We had one, the Zika case, where the infections were so important that we needed to tell our customers. We could turn that around in days. That’s, of course, critical to us, the speed with which we can get our Salespeople ready.

Would you recommend Showpad?

So if people would ask me, “Would you recommend Showpad to colleagues,” I would definitely say yes. I myself now have the proof that this platform works. It’s a huge success in our company. I get a lot of support from my peers and from the Sales organization. So I cannot imagine why it wouldn’t work for others.