Embracing change early and often 11 CROSSMARK is a leading sales and CROSSMARK marketing services company in the retail and consumer goods industry Mike Anderson whose solutions are deployed along CIO the consumer’s journey from thought to bought. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, CROSSMARK has more than 40,000 employees with offices throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, CROSSMARK’S Founded: 1906 and New Zealand. MY AFINITI APP HQ: Plano, TX When Mike Anderson joined the Workforce: 40,000+ company as CIO in late 2013, the Industry: Sales and marketing company had a lot of closed, siloed WHAT IS IT? applications. “There was a perception Mobile loyalty app and that IT was slow and too expensive, website for shoppers which resulted in a ‘rift’ between the visiting local retailers. business and IT,” says Anderson. Anderson saw what software-as-a-service WHAT DOES IT DO? (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) AARP Members can go into a could do for the business. He started retailer, swipe their AARP card, looking for a platform that would allow and get immediate discounts him to build apps, buy existing apps, and directly onto their receipt. On the be ready to integrate all of them with his website, it provides transparency data and back-end systems. to consumers on how much money they have saved by The investment in Salesforce has already having an AARP membership. paid off in newfound capabilities for delivering on speed and scale. For HOW WAS IT BUILT? example, Anderson’s team was tasked Using Heroku in just 45 days. with creating a robust solution in 45 days for AARP. My Afiniti is a program where AARP cardholders can swipe Do you know the 8 core services their membership card at retailers and of a true cloud platform? receive discounts on products from leading consumer product companies. LEARN MORE CROSSMARK IT beat the deadline by building a consumer-facing portal on Heroku that allows 38 million AARP members to register with their AARP card, check out offers, and see what they’ve saved. “Salesforce has helped us become a more agile company,” says Anderson. “Developers can build a proof-of-concept in a day or two and get immediate feedback and faster iteration. At one point, we thought about daily sprints Salesforce has helped us become a more agile company. due to how quickly we can develop.” That speed has allowed CROSSMARK Developers can build a proof-of-concept in a day or two to effectively collapse Shadow IT and and get immediate feedback and faster iteration. consolidate development on Salesforce. Mike Anderson, CIO