{"id":4237,"date":"2017-03-21T17:58:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T17:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/linkedin-steps-closer-to-crm-as-it-gives-sales-navigator-an-enterprise-boost.html"},"modified":"2017-03-21T17:58:35","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T17:58:35","slug":"linkedin-steps-closer-to-crm-as-it-gives-sales-navigator-an-enterprise-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/linkedin-steps-closer-to-crm-as-it-gives-sales-navigator-an-enterprise-boost.html","title":{"rendered":"LinkedIn steps closer to CRM as it gives Sales Navigator an enterprise boost"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

LinkedIn<\/a>, the\u00a0social network for the working world that is now owned by Microsoft<\/a>, is quietly adding more features to\u00a0fill out some of its\u00a0bigger ambitions to provide more services to enterprises, tapping into its user base of more than 465 million professionals. And in the process, it\u2019s also playing on one of the big themes not just behind that Microsoft acquisition, but also pointing to why Salesforce was also interested in buying\u00a0it. In the growing\u00a0game of \u2018social sales\u2019, who will control\u00a0the virtual Rolodex<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today, the company is adding a new \u201centerprise\u201d tier to its Sales Navigator product \u2014 a subscription-only service that lets salespeople tap LinkedIn for customer leads for so-called \u201csocial selling\u201d \u2014 opening\u00a0up the product for much larger groups of users. On top of this, it\u2019s also integrating PointDrive (a tool it acquired last year<\/a> to help salespeople share\u00a0documents and presentations with clients); and adding CRM sync functionality to write back to whichever CRM database your company uses whatever selling you have done in LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

Sales Navigator has never been LinkedIn\u2019s biggest revenue generator. LinkedIn\u00a0is no longer reporting\u00a0individual business areas as it did when it was an independent company.\u00a0But in its last earnings<\/a> before the Microsoft deal closed, while it noted that Sales Navigator was its strongest premium subscription product, premium subs accounted for just $162 million of LinkedIn\u2019s $960 million in revenues that quarter.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Talent Solutions (which includes the recruitment business) generated $623 million.<\/p>\n

But to counterbalance its relatively lightweight place on LinkedIn\u2019s balance sheet, it\u2019s also one area with a lot of potential.<\/p>\n

It was highlighted<\/a> as a key area for synergies with Microsoft when the software giant announced its acquisition of the social network. And well before Microsoft ever came into the picture, people pointed to Sales Navigator<\/a>\u00a0as the lever for how LinkedIn could start to pry\u00a0the lid off\u00a0Salesforce, a giant in the CRM world, a point that appeared to be emphasized by LinkedIn itself as it launched enhancements to the\u00a0product, like a\u00a0standalone app<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite those two currents, LinkedIn\u2019s Doug Camplejohn, the head of product for LinkedIn\u2019s sales solutions, said that these updates are not about trying to compete with Salesforce, and that if anything they are more about trying to reinforce the primary place that\u00a0LinkedIn occupies in the ecosystem for sales, and specifically social selling where you use networks like LinkedIn to tap contacts for leads. In that regard, he\u2019s pointing to what Microsoft saw as one of LinkedIn\u2019s most valuable assets: its database of business users and the connective links between them, useful not just for Microsoft but for other CRM businesses (like Salesforce).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0not competing\u00a0at all with Salesforce,\u201d he said. \u201cWe like the position that we are in. Ours is about the\u00a0<\/span>connections and activities that are happening. For\u00a0us, the best play is to be a complement to all CRM\u00a0systems so that we can exist in that world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said that as part of that strategy, LinkedIn has \u201cleaned into\u201d Salesforce, including an integration that already existed (along with integrations with Oracle, SAP, Sugar, HubSpot and NetSuite).<\/p>\n

In fact, the ability to write activities back into the CRM database that is launching today \u2014 which will include data points like profile details, photos, work history, job titles and TeamLink shared connections \u2014 is launching only with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics (naturally), although he said that other CRM databases will be added into the mix soon.<\/p>\n

This integration also includes new CRM Widgets, which lets you view LinkedIn Sales<\/span> Navigator<\/span> profile details, like photos, work history, job titles and TeamLink shared connections within CRMs like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. Widget integration will also be coming from other partners like Oracle, SAP Hybris, NetSuite, SugarCRM, HubSpot and Zoho later this year.<\/p>\n

Instead, one big\u00a0way that LinkedIn hopes to grow uptake of Sales Navigator now is to expand to serve much larger businesses. The new enterprise tier that is launching today starts at $1,600 per seat, per year, and the purpose is to sell it to large businesses that are too outsized for\u00a0the existing Professional edition\u00a0(for individuals) and Team edition (for groups). A typical example, Camplejohn told me, was EY (formerly known as Ernst Young), which has 250,000 employees globally, is taking 30,000 subscriptions to Sales Navigator.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

With the outsized numbers come more outsized features.<\/p>\n

Users can send 50 InMails (LinkedIn\u2019s direct emailing service) each month, a stronger set of security features with Single Sign-On for companies that choose to use it; and a new feature that it\u2019s calling TeamLink Extend, which is a variation on the company\u2019s existing Team referral and contact pooling structure that lets employees from across a whole company opt in to pool\u00a0their LinkedIn contacts for the sales team to use for \u201cwarm\u201d calls.<\/p>\n

(I wondered about how motivated people would be to share their LinkedIn contact lists, and Camplejohn hinted that there will be more updates coming soon to help provide gamification and other incentives to do just that.)<\/p>\n

The PointDrive integration, meanwhile, will be coming in two areas: LinkedIn will add it to both the Team and Enterprise tiers of Sales Navigator, with Team getting 10 PointDrive presentations per month, and Enterprise getting an unlimited amount. Professional edition \u2014 perhaps as a way of encouraging people to pay for the pricier Team tier \u2014 will be getting none. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Featured Image: Ged Carroll<\/a>\/Flickr<\/a> UNDER A CC BY 2.0<\/a> LICENSE<\/small><\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/1mtYSe9wonM\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LinkedIn, the\u00a0social network for the working world that is now owned by Microsoft, is quietly adding more features to\u00a0fill out some of its\u00a0bigger ambitions to provide more services to enterprises, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-4237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t