Manage customer relationships with cloudbased CRM system

For a CRM system to become a success factor, it must be intuitive, mobile and networked. This is exactly how Trivadis built a solution for a building services provider that makes it even more efficient.

In Short

CHALLENGE

Significant change in the demands on the CRM system through digital transformation.

SOLUTION

Gradual replacement of the existing CRM with a cloud-based solution.

BENEFIT

Efficiency improvements at the customer management – from campaign planning to report generation.

Our Solution

Integrating acquired companies is almost routine for many global corporations. For employees at the parent corporation and the acquired company, however, this often means getting to grips with different or outdated IT systems and data sources over an extended period of time in their day-today work. In customer and partner management in particular, this can quickly lead to difficulties if personalised support is not working or if data has to be transferred from one system to another using the time-consuming Copy & Paste approach.

Employees in sales and marketing at a building services provider in Switzerland faced precisely this challenge: They were confronted with outdated data, a lack of transparency and the cumbersome processes associated with this. When the manufacturer support expired for the version of BSI CRM software in use, the company decided to replace its legacy system with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CE) from the Cloud. The digital transformation with everincreasing volumes of available customer data, new channels and new forms of customer interaction is changing the demands on CRM systems to a significant extent. Today, modern CRM platforms are expected to have three main characteristics: They need to be intuitive, mobile and connected.

Implementing a CRM system in the IT landscape

The CRM system used to date lacked the functionalities to meet these requirements. And an intelligent customer relationship management tool is particularly important for the provider of innovative services in the areas of industry, infrastructure and information and communication technologies. Many of its 2’900 employees work on-site with their customers, be it for consulting and engineering projects, services or system operations. Customer information should therefore be mobile, accessible at any time and able to be documented directly on site without great effort. For the most effective customer service possible, it is also desirable that all departments involved have access to this information and that the CRM tool can be seamlessly linked to other systems.

A strategy for introducing CRM

Together with Trivadis, a project was set up based on the rolling wave planning method, which divides the implementation into five realisation waves. This resulted in a planning framework that offers sufficient flexibility for newly emerging circumstances. To ensure successful implementation of the project, which is running from early 2019 to mid-2021, attention was paid to the priorities of the different stakeholders. The tasks and roles of the departments working with the system are just as varied as the IT affinity of the individual employees. In addition, people had also had very different experiences of the business processes. It is therefore important to get all stakeholders on board and create a common understanding. With the release of the new CRM system in the first wave in September 2020, around 150 employees will start using the system and around 600 simultaneous users are expected in the final expansion.

Increasing productivity with a new CRM system

The existing CRM system will gradually be completely replaced within just under two years. During this process, the mobile application of Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE, in particular, will significantly increase efficiency. Ongoing integration of other systems will also make a significant contribution to this. The building services provider will benefit from the new CRM platform in many ways, be it in marketing, sales or key account management. This makes data maintenance much easier; purchase orders and orders can be created more efficiently; marketing campaigns can be carried out in a more targeted manner; and customer management, including digital visit reports, is directly controlled via the new CRM system. The ability to store files and integrate templates will increase user productivity, as well as opportunity and lead management capabilities.

Technologies used

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement in the Cloud
Document management software
SharePoint
SAP OnPrem

S4 Hana
Alfred
Various other peripheral systems such as Servus, Messerli, etc.