Gefco : on the road to increased sales productivity with Selligent
In order to remain competitive in a world where real-time information is crucial, Gefco, one of the top ten players in the transport and logistics industry in Europe, needed to consolidate and centralise the information relating to the 40,000 customers that make up its portfolio
jean-françois vigneronMarketing Innovation & Technology Director
“We target a return on investment in no more than 18 months. Without Selligent, the commercial policy would have been more difficult to implement.”
“Selligent now allows us to place the customer at the centre of the company, have a a global view of a client account, and consequently improve our sales efficiency.”
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The importance of consolidating information
Gefco is one of the top ten players in the transport and logistics industry in Europe. With activities organised in 3 business lines, more than 200 agencies in 15 countries, and as many sources of customer information, it was impossible to obtain a clear and complete view of the 40.000 customers composing Gefco’s portfolio for the Transport division. Despite the synchronisation processes in place, this information was often redundant, sometimes even contradictory. In order to remain competitive in a world where real-time information is crucial, Gefco needed to consolidate and centralise their customer information at a European level.
More efficient sales processes
The CRM project started in 2000, as part of the total IT reorganisation of Gefco, covering all business lines in the company. The complete sales process was remodelled, with the help of Cap Gemini. The programme, called DEFICOM, aimed at increasing customer loyalty, acquiring new customers, and increasing the sales and administrative productivity. Therefore, Gefco needed to implement a centralised CRM system with a consistent customer view across Europe, in order to consolidate the information and develop marketing applications. Jean-François Vigneron, Marketing Innovation & Technology Director, and Jean-Marc Ors, CRM Project Manager, were on the front line of this project.
The ideal solution to Gefco’s requirements
After examining the CRM offering on the market, Gefco chose Selligent. Their choice was motivated mainly by Selligent’s technical capability allowing a rapid and scalable roll-out of the project, and the user-friendliness of the system reducing the time needed for user training. The expertise of Selligent’s professionals in the transport and logistics industry and their understanding of Gefco’s business were other key elements in the decision. Additionally, with its agencies distributed in 15 countries, Gefco needed a multilingual tool (8 languages) and Selligent was a perfect fit for their needs.
User satisfaction – a fast ROI
“In the past, we at Gefco had a partial knowledge of our customers, and communication between the different business units was insufficient. Selligent now allows us to place the customer at the centre of the company, have a global view of a client account, and consequently improve our sales efficiency.” says Jean-François Vigneron. The CRM implementation covers all aspects of sales force management, including qualification of customers and prospects, opportunity management, sales activity reports, and management of forecasts and objectives. Thanks to Selligent, sales people have all customer information at their fingertips, allowing them to keep track of all customer contacts in other departments and in the headquarters. This information is delivered on their laptops, which gives them complete mobility. While user acceptance is a major problem in most CRM implementations, with Selligent the contribution to everyone’s productivity showed rapidly. And today Selligent is considered to be a major improvement among the sales force. “We target a return on investment in no more than 18 months. Without Selligent, the commercial policy would have been more difficult to implement.” adds Jean-François Vigneron..
An ongoing project
Now that the first phase, namely the sales part of the project, is operational, Gefco is looking forward to the following steps. In 2003, the marketing module will be added to the actual sales functionality. This will provide, beyond customer segmentation, the steering of marketing campaigns and customer satisfaction surveys.
