In this Acceleration Case Study, learn how a company offering services in the financial industry was able to improve efficiency with their sales processes by implementing an upgraded CRM solution. For supporting their customer service and sales functions, they primarily used a highly customized proprietary legacy system. Because it didn’t include the basic features of a modern CRM system, the company needed a solution to upgrade its system. Read how Logan Consulting helped this client company improve the efficiency of its sales processes and upgrade its CRM system.
Business Challenge – Outdated Proprietary Legacy System
A client of Logan Consulting offers specialized research reports and an online catalog for training. They also offer numerous thought leadership events for companies in the financial services industry. These reports and learning services target banks, credit unions, auto, and mortgage lenders. It’s available on a subscription basis.
Logan Consulting’s client primarily used a proprietary legacy system to support their customer service and sales functions each day. However, the system became highly customized overtime for their sales processes. Additionally, it didn’t include the basic features of a modern CRM system. Using this legacy system made it impossible to maintain best practices for internal sales. It wasn’t easy to keep up with revenue without extensive manual analysis.
Software Solution – Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM
After studying the different requirements and needs of the client, Logan Consulting recommended Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM. The initial phase of the CRM project involved an extensive analysis of the sales function.
The team at Logan Consulting performed multiple design sessions with various internal sales groups. They created a design that had the necessary structure and processes for supporting their sales functions and business requirements. Additionally, Logan Consulting created and implemented a customized solution for migrating data from the legacy system to the Microsoft CRM. This is done by using the database services from Azure Cloud.
The solution configured and developed by Logan Consulting included:
- Master data structure for managing accounts with several branches that can be used throughout each division with an easy to view hierarchy
- Extensive use of Power Automate and D365 Workflows for automating manual processes
- Maintains each product list from each division in one location within CRM
- Uses Rollups and Calculated fields for providing critical summary data for accounts related to current customer status, number of available opportunities per division, and expiration status for current subscribers
- Easily tracks interaction activities for clients while using notes for CRM Time Functionality without the need for copying and pasting data from Outlook
- Granular security roles for gaining access to documents and record creation related to sales functions
- Extended use of custom objects to accommodate design requirements for clients
- Ability to quickly extend and change the system for meeting new sales requirements
- Migrated over a decade worth of documents, data, and other activities to the cloud from Microsoft CRM
- Easily exports data from Dashboards and create views from Pipeline and Sales Activity to Excel for additional analysis
The Results
From the beginning of scoping to the go-live date, the project only took around five months to complete. By using the Conference Room Pilot from Logan Consulting, they tested the system extensively before going live. This helped to keep problems to a minimum.
The training process occurred in small groups over 10 days before the go-live date. The use of the legacy system was disabled at the end of business on a Thursday. The data migration process took less than 24 hours. By Saturday afternoon, the D365 system was ready for final checks. So, employees could log in on Monday morning and immediately begin using the brand-new CRM system.
Now, the client has a robust CRM system to handle all sales processes. Meanwhile, they are using Microsoft Azure to host platform technology. It can also be easily accessed from any location. Because of the increase in remote work, it is now especially important to improve accessibility. In addition, the platform is easily customizable and extensible by offering a vast number of techniques to automate simple tasks while continuing to adapt to ever-changing sales requirements.
