Selligent instrumental in improving efficiency at Analis
Analis is one of Belgium’s leaders in the market for scientific laboratory instruments, with nearly 80 years serving its clients. Just a few years ago, its sales force had no particular tool for managing its activity; the lack of visibility on client information hampered sales effectiveness and was damaging for the quality of their client relations. But that is all in the past now.
Dominique DurnezCustomer Administration Manager
“The CRM allows us to monitor our client portfolio and to gauge the business potential for the coming months, determine our sales outlook and to understand why we won a contract and why we lost another. In particular, we can react swiftly when we observe a downturn.”
“This process of simplification has already improved client qualification by around 20%. Now we are working on introducing an Internet platform that will allow clients themselves to manage their profiles by specifying their centres of interest.”
Analis was founded in Namur, Belgium in 1927. Its original business was to manufacture sterilisers and market glass and chemical products. In 1940, the company specialised in selling scientific laboratory instruments and reagents and servicing the equipment. Today, Analis is one of Belgium’s leading companies in this sector. It provides a wide range of instruments – from the basic to the sophisticated – and represents over 100 leading international manufacturers. Its broad palette of offerings enables Analis to respond to the most stringent demands of its lab clients, whatever their speciality. But Analis’ prime strength is in the service it offers its clients, counselling them on the best choice of equipment, training them, feeding them regular information with targeted publications, and providing fast, efficient technical service which caters for different levels of urgency.
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The need for transparency
Only a few years ago, Analis did not have a tool dedicated to sales management. Dominique Durnez, Analis Customer Administration Manager who heads up the CRM project, recalls that “back then, customer data were centralised in our ERP system. That caused a number of problems. For example, the centres of interest that act as the basis for qualifying our clients were entered in the ERP and were very difficult to access. So the sales reps lacked visibility about their customer base. Another major problem concerned the activity reports of the 40 or so sales reps; they were sent by e-mail or in paper form and then entered into the ERP. This not only caused delays in the availability of information. It was also a source of errors of interpretation or simply mistakes in entering the information.” In addition, this way of working created a great deal of toing and froing of all kinds of printed documents and listings, and that inhibited the co-operation between the company’s two sales divisions, Clinical Diagnostics and Analytical Chemistry. Not to mention the lack of a common diary accessible by all concerned, making co-ordination within the sales teams even more difficult.
Daily synchronisation with the ERP
Analis general management and the sales people were aware of the need to streamline the sales processes. That is why, in 2004, it was decided to provide the sales force with a tool tailored to its activity and available through an Internet link. Analis called in a business consultant to help find the ideal solution and some 20 companies were asked to make proposals based on detailed technical and functional specifications. “We also set up a small assessment group, which included representatives from the sales force, with the aim of involving the future users in the choice of solution right from the outset,” Durnez points out. At the end of the day, Selligent won the bidding – against two US majors – because it covered all the expressed needs and provided for an implementation fast track. It also offered substantial configuration flexibility without the need for IT specialists to be called on. Indeed, all it took was six months to implement the project, train the users and synchronise the CRM system with the ERP.
Quality data available in real time
Since the launch of the solution, the sales reps input their visit reports directly into the application. That avoids transcription errors and ensures that the data are available in real time to everyone concerned. And since they are actively involved in the database management, the sales people are more sensitive to the importance of the quality of the data. Not surprisingly, it continues to improve. Managing profiles and centres of interest is also significantly easier. “This process of simplification has already improved client qualification by around 20%”, Durnez states. “Now we are working on introducing an Internet platform that will allow clients themselves to manage their profiles by specifying their centres of interest.” So, thanks to Selligent, Analis is now able to better segment its client base and more accurately target its communications. In fact, marketing activity has intensified. And thanks to the synchronisation with the ERP, the sales people have a 360° overview of their customers – offerings, orders, installed base, requests for technical service, etc.
Better follow-up of opportunities
The CRM also illuminates all the sales processes. Analis General Manager, Paul van der Aa, explains, “previously, the information was inputted into the ERP only at the time of the sales proposal. But now we have the benefit of tracking as soon as an opportunity arises. When you consider that up to two years can go by between these two phases, you realise how important it is that all contacts prior to the proposal be documented. The CRM allows us to monitor our client portfolio and to gauge the business potential for the coming months, determine our sales outlook and to understand why we won a contract and why we lost another. In particular, we can react swiftly when we observe a downturn.” In this case, Marketing can, for example, put together a targeted campaign to generate opportunities in a specific business area. Then again, when a new opportunity is detected, the sales rep is required to specify its source. “That helps us adjust our communications plan accordingly and analyse the productivity of our different communications resources.” he adds.
More professional contact
By making sure that everyone has all client information readily available, Analis was able to improve sales team collaboration. Gone are the days when piles of documents and e-mails had to be showered on anyone with a need to know. It is all right there at their fingertips. Now, each sales rep has access to colleagues’ diaries. This makes co-ordination easier. And avoids the situation where two reps go to the same client within days of each other. As Paul van der Aa points out, “when a sales rep goes to see a client, he is better informed and therefore more professional and more effective.”
Adopted!
To ensure optimum usage of the system, Dominique Durnez invested a huge amount of effort in training and user support. She also had to dissipate a certain amount of hesitation on the part of users, who were afraid that the system would be a means of monitoring their work schedule as well as an administrative burden. She takes a realistic position on the latter subject: “obviously, for the system to be efficient, everyone must input the data he or she possesses. And that takes time. But the advantages match the effort, and they now appreciate the value of the new approach.” As far as monitoring is concerned, the sales reps used to record their schedules in their expense accounts. Now, it is all in the diary, while expense accounts are also managed in the system. True, Analis recently introduced sales rep activity analyses, “but not as a means of monitoring, but rather to help them optimise their time in achieving their sales goals,” explains Paul van der Aa. 65 people use the system on a daily basis. But the CRM system has to be fully exploited. And expand. And it has to continue to be ‘sold’ inside the enterprise. That is why Durnez continues to send out regular tips and hints to help users with their work.
Plenty of projects in the pipeline
Analis recently launched the migration to the new Selligent X@ version. That should offer full bi-directional synchronisation between the Selligent diary, Microsoft Outlook and the PDAs. Also, the new document management module integrated in Selligent X@ will enable Analis to structure the sharing of documents, notes and e-mails with clients. The migration will also represent an opportunity to further streamline system usage through further training sessions. Analis has a number of projects up its sleeve use the CRM data for statistical purposes. And CTI integration is another growth avenue for the solution. Paul van der Aa has this to say in conclusion: “Around 20 years ago, a sales rep had a client card on which he wrote down all key data. The card gave him an immediate overview of his client. The advent of IT tools caused us to lose ground compared to that situation. That said, it was an individual’s perspective, and today, if we want to be efficient, we have to work as a team. CRM gives us the same client overview, but shared by everyone.”
