In an effort to increases sales efficiency and process visibility, U.S.-based container shipping and integrated logistics company, Horizon Lines, has deployed Salesforce CRM by leveraging Astadia's professional services, announced Astadia at the cloud computing event Dreamforce 2010 via a press release.

For those unaware, SalesForce CRM is Salesforce.com’s online web-based Customer Relationship Management “CRM” software service. It captures and organizes communications and information from present or prospective customers from many departments across a company.

Astadia is a pure-play cloud computing integrators and a top salesforce.com partner. This systems integrator and management consultancy is focused on data-driven business process optimization of sales, marketing and customer service organizations.

According to Astadia, the company utilizes best-of-breed Cloud technologies from an unparalleled team of strategic partners, including salesforce.com, Google (News - Alert), and Eloqua. The company’s certified consultants have deployed over 6,000 projects in more than 30 countries across the world.

By leveraging Astadia's professional services, Horizon Lines has experienced greater visibility into its sales pipeline, opportunities, contracts, and process.

Apart from achieving customization and consistency in business and sales processes, Astadia's deployment for Horizon Lines has also provided the company with increased accountability across all levels of organization, up-to-date leads, seamless matrix selling, multiple scenarios with custom objects, and a 360-degree view of their books of business.

In addition, Astadia's deployment for Horizon Lines has enables sales to analyze data anywhere, and has advanced Horizon Line's reach into shipping opportunities across the globe.

"Thanks to Astadia's deployment of Salesforce CRM, our management team has been empowered with tools that allow them to better handle their book of business," said Michelle Hastings-Rosas, manager, marketing and sales systems, Horizon Lines, in a statement. "The solution allows them to eliminate administrative tasks so they can be more analytical in their roles."

Apart from Horizon Lines, Aggregate Industries has also deployed Astadia’s professional services with Salesforce CRM, in order to improve its sales productivity. With Astadia’s Salesforce CRM deployment, Aggregate is now experiences exponential lead volume, improved close rates, new delivery efficiency, sales accountability, as well as improved information accuracy and availability.

In the recent news, Astadia announced the launch of Data Advisory Services Practice to enable optimization of data-driven processes. The new offering is capable of analyzing business' current data quality and defining the ideal future state.

In addition, Astadia also announced the launch of ROI cloud calculator, which will enable customer service executives to examine the return on investment for transitioning from legacy, premise-based CRM tools.