The Austrian School has played only a negligible role in its country of origin but has enjoyed unbroken popularity in the United States since the 1970s with the work of Friedrich August von Hayek, Israel M. Kirzner, Murray Rothbard and especially Ludwig von Mises. The Austrians are central to the philosophy of the product Pipeliner for that reason the program with principles, because they are the only economic school of thought that assigns entrepreneurship a pivotal role in economic development. A businessman’s task is to apply his resourcefulness to track down knowledge and opportunities for profits—in other words, to utilize the advantages that come from information. Taking a risk while protecting the existing business is at the crux of every decision a businessman makes. The more successfully he makes each decision, the more successful his business will be. The more successful the businessman is in the economy, the more successful the economy will be.

An Intuitive Product

This paradigm of entrepreneurship has left its imprint and shaped the Pipeliner prinicples. This Easy Sales CRM solution is an instrument that enables businesses to ascertain, their own risk and security from a single source, all in keeping with the Austrian School. Of course, it can also be applied to the salespeople, who today are in reality “entrepreneurs in the enterprise.” Pipeline management allows entrepreneurial actions to be considered not only in retrospect as is traditional but also in advance gearing them to risk and security. The positive potential of entrepreneurial action is not only protected in the process, it is multiplied. Therefore what has been developed is an intuitive product that is based on the highly relevant findings of 150 years of economic history and economic theory as developed by the Austrians. The objective is to provide the best possible support for entrepreneurship.

An entrepreneur’s task is to create knowledge and seek out opportunities for profits—in other words, to utilize the advantages that come from information. Taking a risk while protecting existing business is at the crux of every decision a businessman makes. As Jesus Huerto de Soto describes this principle of the Austrian School Econimics best in his introduction “Market Order and Entrepreneurial Creativity”: “By its very nature and definition, entrepreneurship is always competitive. This means that once an actor discovers a certain profit opportunity and acts to take advantage of it, the opportunity tends to disappear, and no other actor can then perceive and seize it. Likewise, if an actor only partially discovers an opportunity for profit, or, having discovered it completely, takes only partial advantage of it, then a portion of that opportunity will remain latent for other actors to discover and grasp. Therefore, the social process is markedly competitive, in the sense that different actors compete with each other, consciously and unconsciously, to be the first to perceive and embrace profit opportunities”.  This application provides well-founded support precisely for this balancing act.

In day-to-day business, the software builds its benchmarks for salespeople as “entrepreneurs in the enterprise”—with the specific requirements and challenges they face in shaping customer relationships in an optimum and successful fashion. But the software also broadens the view of salespeople and businesses to completely new perspectives for better managing the future of the enterprise plus understanding the past with a retrospective analysis of the enterprise through a “real-time view”. The competitive situation of the company improves as a result and it has an easier time obtaining liquidity. Investors appreciate being able to use a company’s systematic, well-founded analysis of its future as a basis for their own decision-making.

Shortcomings of Classic CRM Tools

Classic sales and distribution structures and instruments are fundamentally based on a centralistic, top-down approach. Salespeople face the challenge of attaining goals imposed from above. There is just one motto and one measure. The figures have to be on the mark. When conventional CRM tools are phased in, pressure mounts on the salespeople of being controlled from above. In addition, they face the challenge of carrying out extensive reporting tasks and other activities that are definitely not among their core skills.  As John Golden, CEO from Huthwaite writes in “Winning the Battle for Sales”: “When Salespople are asked to use CRM Systems, they generally  drop their shoulders, roll their eyes, and in their mind kiss their valuable selling time goodbye. For them, it´s anything but automation. For a big part of that day, the perceive themselves turning into a data-enty clerk inputting their deals into a seemingly redundant system only to turn around and discuss those same deals later in the week with their managers”.  Salespeople are not bookkeepers—and have no interest in becoming bookkeepers. They are individuals who think and act as entrepreneurs, who take personal responsibility in freely shaping economic events.

Conventional CRM tools are classic top-down instruments serving as control and monitoring instruments or intensifying previous control and monitoring mechanisms. They turn salespeople into data collectors and data managers. Systems of this kind generally benefit organizational entities within the company, not the individual members on sales team. Little thought has been given to the benefit for sales up until now—and to the fact that people only enjoy and are good at doing what benefits them.

Avoiding a Reduction in Potential Sales

Finally, this situation underscores the lack of appreciation shown to sales and its employees. In reality, the quality of the sales organization stems from the team actively preparing and building customer relationships based on information, not from coping with burgeoning administrative responsibilities. Selling means knowledgably interacting, not merely engaging in unlimited data collection. It is no wonder that these types of tools tend to reduce the potential of good salespeople rather than unleash it.

It is also an expression of a humanization of IT that makes people and their needs the focal point of attention after simplifying complex interrelationships. This objective and this approach have given rise to a completely new type of CRM instrument. The solution is an expression of companies that democratizes entrepreneurial thinking and action.

Program with Principles

Pipeliner revolutionizes the sales process in the interest of employees and businesses. The solution empowers individuals to act in a personally responsible manner based on their own individual ideas and goals. Thanks to flexibility and self-determination, users are given genuine latitude to shape their own course instead of simply following rules. This approach has positive effects in every respect. Employees become genuine “entrepreneurs within the enterprise”, Sales managers become “coaches”.

Pipeliner is an expression of serving people, not structures. It lays the kind of lasting groundwork for knowledge management at businesses that is so decisive for growth.