CRM Implementation: The Second Time

Schleuniger Leverages Knowledge to Make the Best Choice

For most companies, implementing a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system can be trying experience. Defining its needs, identifying the best CRM application, selecting a reliable vendor and gaining user acceptance is a tougher row to hoe than most organizations anticipate.

But for Manchester, New Hampshire-based Schleuniger, Inc., the challenge was implementing a second CRM system. The builder of precision wire-manufacturing equipment adopted SNAP in August 1993, but had outgrown this early, DOS-based solution. Schleuniger faced a dual challenge: (1) How to pick the best successor application; (2) How to minimize the disruption of installing a new system while simultaneously using the new application to bring about a change in the companyÍs sales and service culture.

Minimizing Risk

Schleuniger president Marc AmietÍs and MIS Director Rich KoleÍs first challenge was to find the best fit for the company. And with hundreds of CRM products in the market, the process of making a choice was daunting. The CRM industry had seen some shakeout over the last few years; some major players had fallen by the wayside, including several industry darlings.

Rich Kole explained that the first step was to minimize risk. "We started off by eliminating all but the most prominent applications because we didnÍt want to invest our time or dollars into a product that looked good on paper but went out of business on us. We were hoping that our next CRM system would last us a very long time."

Schleuniger, Inc. is an industry leader in the manufacture of precision wire processing equipment. Customers tend to be small organizations that need a considerable amount of attention from Amiet's company. The equipment requires regular maintenance and calibration and customers do not always remember to seek out this kind of service. Amiet and Kole were hoping that a new CRM system could automate the process of contacting customers on time for these critical services.

In addition, SchleunigerÍs growth had produced an unexpected downside: Information about customer needs was fragmented among several Schleuniger departments including customer service, inside sales and accounting. The manufacturerÍs reps that sell SchleunigerÍs products collect other critical intelligence. As information became increasingly fragmented within the company, more data was being double entered and the risk of entry errors compounded. One of the manufacturerÍs key goals was to create a culture of shared information„an achievement that could be reached only if the new CRM system made it easy for the users to store and access customer records.

Kole and Amiet first considered only some of the industry's leading lights: Siebel, Onyx, GoldMine, Pivotal, Lotus Notes and SalesLogix. "We cut GoldMine out of the pack right away because it just didnÍt have the functionality we needed."

Siebel's product looked attractive at first but was eliminated because of the expense of purchasing, modifying and implementing it. "We thought that Siebel looked great for a company with deeper pockets than ours" explained Kole. "We needed to find something that would give us robust functionality and something that was highly customizable without breaking the bank."

The Schleuniger team eliminated another promising application, Onyx, for the same reason. They looked very carefully at Saratoga Systems as well and came close to purchasing it. "Saratoga is sold directly by the manufacturer and we really liked the fact that support would come from them. We liked the idea that we would have direct access to the source code, too. But in the end we were scared off by the geography: They're located in California and we're in New England. We were nervous about the fact that consulting costs tend to soar when the vendor is so far away."

Kole also crossed Pivotal off his shopping list. "It was about twice the money as the package we finally chose and we didn't see much difference in functionality. We dropped Lotus Notes from consideration too because we just didn't have the time, energy or resources for a Notes implementation. ItÍs a great product but not for us!"

Amiet and Kole settled on SalesLogix, a fully-relational database product that had the stability and longevity they were seeking. SalesLogix, founded by CRM industry founder Pat Sullivan, is based in Scottsdale, Arizona, and has VARs around the country. With over 4000 customers worldwide, including such heavyweights as ADP, Tiffany & Co., Anheuser Busch, Time, Inc., eTrade, ASK JEEVES!, and others, Schleuniger felt comfortable with SalesLogixÍs ability to survive in an extremely competitive environment.

ñWe were also impressed by the ease with which we could customize SalesLogix. We knew that we could duplicate the functionality of SNAP which meant that our users would be able to transition very gracefully from the old product to the new one.

The Vendor Search

Schleuniger's next challenge was picking a vendor to implement the SalesLogix product. And they ran into an unexpected challenge: The finalist candidate ended up looking too good! Says Kole, "We narrowed things down by eliminating the ïone-man band" kind of VAR and anyone who was too new in the industry. We really liked what we saw from Compulan but we almost didn't choose them because their demo was flawless and we didnÍt know what to make of it!"

Kole was worried that Compulan president Mark Engelberg's presentation was all the company had to offer. But he researched further and found the reason for Engelberg's polish: His company, founded 14 years earlier at the time, is one of the oldest in the CRM industry and he'd had nearly a decade-and-a-half to hone his demo skills. Engelberg explains, "We're probably the second or third oldest CRM integrator in the country, certainly the oldest in New England. But our business is not exclusively regional. We have over 500 clients in 34 states and 4 countries. And although SchleunigerÍs requirements were quite unique, we've seen that most companies benefit by the kind of information-sharing they needed and we felt that we'd had quite a bit of success in helping with this kind of challenge."

A very lengthy courtship between Schleuniger and Compulan preceded Kole's selection of SalesLogix and Engelberg's company. Kole and Engelberg began discussing Schleuniger's needs in early 1998 and Kole narrowed the field to SalesLogix, Pivotal and Saratoga. The two companies agreed to go forward in spring, 1998 and had the application installed in the summer. Says Kole, "We wanted to proceed very carefully and appreciated Compulan's attention to the details."

Unexpected Implementation Issues

Although Schleuniger had defined its requirements carefully and despite Compulan's experience there were a few hiccups during the implementation. Says Kole, "The biggest problem we had is that we underestimated the hardware resources required. Although we had few users at the implementation, our inside sales and customer service staff typically have quite a few applications open, such as Word, an accounting program, an Access database, Microsoft Outlook, and SalesLogix. This would have been demanding even without SalesLogix. Compulan's technical people were a little surprised at how many apps we had open. We had to move to NT to keep our users stable."

On the other hand, some of the implementation was unexpectedly easy. Kole remembers, "We thought we were going to have to do all of our reporting in Crystal Reports but found that the SalesLogix Query Builder was so easy and so powerful that I never heard about reporting problems again. We give our users permission to export query results into Excel and they can slice up the info without getting MIS involved. This has been a real boon to sales and to marketing."

Immediate Payoff

Schleuniger began enjoying the advantages that they'd hoped for right away. Kole directs SalesLogix to pinpoint the customers needing the critical periodic maintenance and calibration service and creates a fax blast from that list. And the key goal of creating a culture of shared information? Says Kole, "We were able to streamline the information so that most everything is done in SalesLogix. And since implementing SalesLogix, we have started selling some product through distribution and we were able to set up a tracking system quite easily. Instead of people creating their own personal spreadsheets to keep information handy, it's all available to all users whenever they need."

There was an unexpected payoff from the new system. Kole's staff now had the tools to call customers after any service call. "Our customers typically don't have the resources to track their own service history. They were absolutely delighted when our customer service staff began placing follow-up calls. This is a definite advantage for us because our competitors typically donÍt do this they donÍt have these kinds of tools" added Kole.

In addition Schleuniger's staff now enter data more efficiently. By using queries we've cut down data entry time because customer service can find the records that need updating instantly. And Schleuniger uses MAS90, an accounting package for which SalesLogix has recently created an interface. Says Kole, "It was fortuitous dumb luck that these two applications now tie together so well! In hindsight we feel awfully smart."

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