Carlo’s Bakery has been in business for well over 100 years, providing delicious cakes and pastries as well as exceptional customer service. In the beginning paper and pencil was the way the bakery took orders and kept records. They did everything by hand, from the initial consultation appointment, done over the phone and penciled in on the calendar to jotting down alterations for cake designs, which often got missed placed or would not be accurate. At this time Carlo’s Bakery owners still had to sign all employees pay checks by hand. While the bakery was always a neighborhood success, it had much to learn before it could capture the world by storm. At this time the $20 million bakery was being run on paper and pencil, very impressive for the amount of sales being generated (McNeff).
After the initial airing of Cake Boss on TV’s TLC business began exploding and Carlo’s Bakery had to make changes to compete with the increase in demand. One could expect a wait time of up to four hours to place an order by phone or in person. It wasn’t until CIO, Leo Minervini started looking into solutions that he discovered Salesforce and the great products they offered. It took very little to convince Buddy to adopt Salesforces’ services. They started by adopting the salesforce.com platform to develop a new way of taking client orders, which they coined “Cakeforce,” this system allows for the easy