Starting from scratch
When a manufacturer of high-quality plates and platemaking equipment for flexographic printing was carved out from a leading global manufacturer, it inherited a copy-paste of the company’s customer relationship management (CRM) system to enable it to be operational from the get-go. While serving the larger enterprise well, the new enterprise found the CRM tool to be unfit for purpose. “Our division represented about 10 percent of the overall initial company, so, understandably, the CRM system was only about 10 percent tailored to our needs. For the rest, it offered obsolete data, wasn’t scaleable and had no accompanying documentation to enable us to make necessary changes. It was great for us to get started with, but we clearly needed a greenfield system of our own,” explains Global Head of CRM and eCommerce for the new firm.
Supporting future growth
The system in use was Salesforce and the new concern was convinced that it was the tool it wanted to continue with, it just needed it to be configured to its precise requirements to enable it to become not just independent, but scale up and grow. For that, it needed a partner. “For a project of this magnitude, it was clear that we’d need external experts with the required technical skills to support our small internal team. Knowing that PwC had acquired a firm with the specific skills we were looking for, we included the firm in our bid process. The PwC team put a lot of effort into its proposal and ended up with the most convincing offer,” the Global Head of CRM and eCommerce recalls.
In it for the long term
“Rather than looking for simply a supplier to implement the new system, we wanted a long-term partner who would be there to support us over time to help us deal with the challenges we face in becoming a fully independent, scalable enterprise,” says the client. And they add, “In a strategic partnership, as we’ve been able to build with PwC, all parties take responsibility for their roles and achieving set milestones, and the PwC team certainly does that.” In addition to the set-up and implementation of Salesforce in the way the client needs, we’re also helping it with a second wave; the mapping and design of all service processes.
“The new fit-for-purpose system has freed up time to work on more value-adding activities.”
Introducing best practice
As well as our deep technical skills, we’re supporting the client from a strategic point of view. “The PwC team understands our business and what we’re looking to achieve so it makes total sense that they help us with process design. We’re looking to them to help us identify and implement best practices with regards serving customers on equipment and software,” the client notes. He adds, “Our end goal is to have a streamlined system that’s truly built for purpose and automated to the greatest extent possible so that from the moment we agree a proposal with a customer, the process to put that proposal into practice runs automatically and smoothly from then on.”
Reaping rewards
And the new system is already reaping rewards. “Our marketing team has seen the time taken to save and manage files in the new system significantly reduced. Indeed, we estimate that it saves up to 220 mandays for the team. That means that they have more time to work on more value-adding activities. There are many financial benefits too. And we’re expecting to see similar advantages for our sales team,” the client enthuses. With the new tailored version of Salesforce, the time taken to create and approve a quote will be reduced from days to a matter of just hours. “We’re looking forward to continuing to learn from our partnership with PwC,” he concludes.
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