Balanco’s sales and marketing on the same platform, Salesforce, leveraging AI and Slack
Balanco is an ambitious pioneer and a bold reformer in the accounting firm industry. As an organization that actively leverages modern technology and embraces the possibilities of automation, it needed a system that shares the same goals.
Balanco was looking for a system that would better support their growth targets than their current system, Pipedrive, while also enabling marketing automation, the identification of upselling opportunities, and more versatile use of AI tools.
“We chose Salesforce because we needed a scalable platform to support our accelerating growth across all of Balanco’s operating countries. Our goal was to bring multichannel sales, customer relationships, and customer behavior data onto a single platform. As well as to integrate growth tracking and customer development into daily operations through cross-team collaboration, also via Slack.
Salesforce stood out with its ability to support both local and international sales, marketing automation, and the use of intelligent agents in developing sales and customer relationships. Salesforce’s technology best met our needs for building a unified, data-driven growth management model.
We chose Ceili as our partner due to their strong expertise, convincing approach to project management, and agile way of working—they quickly understood our goals and stood out among other Salesforce partners with their straightforwardness, commitment, and ability to drive change efficiently throughout the organization.”
The goals of the Salesforce project were summarized as follows:
- A unified customer view across different countries and business units
- A unified sales and marketing model – with sales and marketing data and activities in one system
- Integration of Slack with Salesforce to enable seamless communication
What did Balanco’s Salesforce implementation project include, and what will the implemented solutions be used for?
Together with Ceili, Balanco implemented Salesforce Sales Cloud to support sales and customer relationship management for both existing and new customers. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement was selected for marketing automation. In addition, integrations were implemented with KOHO ERP, Oneflow, Vainu, and Slack.
Sales Cloud to support sales and customer relationship management for both existing and new customers:
- A 360° view of customer relationships across countries and business units
- Sales and marketing data in one system
- Campaign and lead management within the same process
- Enabling measurable and systematic collaboration between sales and marketing teams
- Supporting the customer throughout the sales process and decision-making
- A unified and fast quote and contract process using the Oneflow tool
- Seamless data flow between Salesforce and the ERP system containing customer data
- Rapid enrichment of customer data using Vainu
- Automatic data flow between Salesforce and the communication tool Slack
Account Engagement for executing and automating marketing:
- Targeted marketing campaigns by segment
- Management of the newsletter process
- Lead generation and management
- Lead nurturing based on prospect activity
- Managing country-specific marketing from a single place
- Execution of event marketing
- Personalized customer journeys
- ABM (Account-Based Marketing) – tailored communication targeting for selected accounts
How was Balanco’s Salesforce implementation project carried out?
The Salesforce implementation was carried out with Ceili using a sprint model:
- Each sprint focused on definition workshops for a specific area
- Based on these, the solution was implemented and delivered to Balanco for testing
- Balanco then provided testing feedback to Ceili
- Ceili made the final adjustments based on the feedback
In the final sprint, user training sessions were held and the system was officially launched. After the implementation project, the work continued into a development phase, where the Salesforce setup is further enhanced together. For example, additional processes are being automated and AI tools are being introduced.
This phased approach ensures high-quality and thorough execution, while prioritizing the most important developments. The implementation project lasted 4 months, and all areas were completed within the agreed budget and schedule.
How did the collaboration between Balanco and Ceili go in the project?
“The implementation of Salesforce has brought us significant benefits, particularly in terms of centralizing information and improving transparency. The integration of Salesforce, Slack, and Koho has enhanced information flow and reduced data silos. In addition, we are now able to leverage data more effectively to support our business. The biggest challenges of the project were related to scheduling amid a busy day-to-day environment and ensuring the quality of the definition phase. However, these were successfully overcome through strong collaboration and open communication.
Working with Ceili has been smooth from the very beginning. Shared communication and project management platforms have supported our work excellently and kept the overall picture well under control. I can warmly recommend Ceili as a Salesforce partner. Their way of working aligns well with ours: they take ownership of matters, their service model is highly proactive, and communication is fast and flexible.”
“The project went very well and according to plan. Collaboration worked smoothly in both directions, and requirements were defined together very efficiently. Balanco had clearly done their pre-work, and they always came well prepared to the definition workshops. The Balanco team was committed to the project, which was reflected in clear project management, fast decision-making, and active participation. This also enabled our success in our own role.”
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