LinkedIn introduces new enterprise edition for big businesses

LinkedIn is giving more power to enterprises by allowing them to influence its network of almost half a billion working professionals. The Microsoft-owned company has launched a new enterprise edition tier and other enhancements to its sales tool, Sales Navigator, a new feature called PointDrive, and enhanced CRM integrations.

"Salespeople usually have three tabs open — email, CRM and some flavor of LinkedIn," said Doug Camplejohn, LinkedIn head of products for LinkedIn Sales Solutions. "How can we really add value in that environment? We decided we really should build a system of engagement."

Enterprise Edition:

LinkedIn announced Enterprise Edition, its third tier for Sales Navigator. It's a subscription-only service that lets salespeople tap LinkedIn for customer leads for social selling — opening up the product for much larger groups of users.

LinkedIn has also increased the number of LinkedIn InMails to 50 per month, along with manageability features like Single Sign-On (SSO).

Besides the company has introduced TeamLink Extend, a tool that extends the networks of all the Sales Navigator users in a company. People within an organisation can opt-in their LinkedIn network to the TeamLink pool, which allows salespeople to see if anyone in their group is connected to a potential lead.

Though the Enterprise Edition costs $1,600 per annum, however, the first 1,000 seats of TeamLink Extend is free with every Enterprise Edition contract.

PointDrive:

LinkedIn acquired PointDrive last July, and it is now incorporating that technology to personalise and deliver content to their prospective customers. It also gives the buyer better-packaged information.

With PointDrive, salespeople can avoid the customary email loaded with attachments when prospects ask for follow-up information, LinkedIn officials said.

PointDrive "nailed delivering this type of content better than anyone else," said Camplejohn, adding that it's easy to package a bundle of materials through PointDrive and render them in a mobile or desktop experience for the buyer.

Enhanced CRM:

Sales Navigator’s new CRM Sync now includes write-back functionality, designed to cut down on the manual process of CRM. Notes, InMails or calls from the Sales Navigator mobile app for iOS and Android can be written back as activities to a CRM.

The integration also packs a slew of CRM tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator profile details, work history, job titles and so on. You can also view things like TeamLink shared connections within different CRMs like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. The company is also planning a bunch of other widget integrations like Oracle, SAP Hybris, SugarCRM NetSuite and Zoho.