Communication flows between Spadel and Selligent
Spadel is the Benelux market’s leading supplier of bottled water with a range of brands encompassing Spa, Bru, and Spontin. The desire for greater sales-team efficiency in its Belgian operations prompted it to approach Selligent, a top-ranking supplier of CRM solutions, and to choose the sales and marketing modules in Selligent, back in 2002. As a result, Spadel can now generate in-depth customer-profitability analyses and automate sales force process management, paving the road for a substantial rise in its revenue and profits.
Bart LaumannsMarket Analyst Benelux
“I have no doubts that the new system generates much more comprehensive analyses. It is also improving short and long-term management and giving sales-team efficiency and productivity a boost. And, at the end of the day, it’s helping us up our market share, turnover, profits and customer-satisfaction levels.”
“Now, sales staff have a wealth of information – spanning customers, their purchasing history, promotions currently underway, and Spadel’s product range – at their fingertips. And they can draft and send their visit reports in minutes”
“Selligent completed implementation within its 50-day timeframe, and then enhanced its solution with added features that were not in the original assessment but improved the solution’s capabilities and convenience even further.”
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Five databases
A few years back, however, Spadel Belgium’s sales teams were using no less than five distinct and disconnected databases. Those databases were neither interlinked nor interfaced with the back-office system, meaning information overlaps were more of a rule than an exception. Their scant features and labyrinthine data access hampered sales-team efficiency and made sound customer-profitability analysis simply impossible. This situation could not be allowed to continue.
CRM rationale
In 2001, escalating competition from newcomer own-brand rivals, paired with swelling sales in the overall bottled-water market, boiled Spadel’s options down to investing in suitable capabilities or forsaking the market’s healthy growth and its competitive edge – in the near future. Spadel also realised that adopting a CRM solution – and embracing the rationale underlying it – was the only way to optimise its sales efforts. The solution, however, needed to address a number of issues. Spadel needed a single software system, but one customised to suit each of its diverse sales channels. The application needed to streamline appointment-scheduling and visit-report management. It had to help field, trade-marketing and sales staff work in sync, while unbridling information exchanges within each team. It also had to feed Spadel’s customer information base and help it to assess customer profitability. Lastly, the solution had to help sales representatives to establish priorities, boost visit efficiency, gauge sales targets, gather all the customer-related data they needed, and make the best use of all the customer knowledge available throughout the company. This new system, of course, also needed to be convenient and user-friendly. It also had to be designed such that the other countries hosting Spadel operations could integrate it easily into their systems.
The right choice
An in-depth market survey soon gave Spadel a clear picture of the CRM market’s key players along with their product ranges and vertical and geographic expertise. By June 2001, it had cut its shortlist down to three options: Selligent and two rival bids. Spadel then tested those short-listed options against a number of pin-pointed criteria, spanning functionality (sales-force automation, account management, customer care and marketing), reporting and analysis capabilities, workflow management, technology (office tools and Web-based features), internal management, flexibility and upgradability, supplier background (reliability, location and customer references) and budget (licences, implementation and operating costs).
Three months down the road
Spadel finally chose Selligent. A brief requirement analysis led to an extensive functional assessment, and the implementation phase followed right after that. Selligent completed implementation within its 50-day timeframe, and then enhanced its solution with added features. Those extra features were not in the original assessment but, at the end of the day, improved the solution’s capabilities and convenience even further. For example, the CRM system, containing all existing and new customer data, is fuelled by the ERP application that Spadel was originally using. In the interim, in-house training courses acquainted users with the new system. Refresher courses are being held on a regular basis.
Advantages on a number of fronts
Now, sales staff have a wealth of information – spanning customers, their purchasing history, promotions currently underway, and Spadel’s product range – at their fingertips. And they can draft and send their visit reports in minutes. Spadel executives can use available customer information to set realistic sales targets, and use reliable statistics generated by the CRM system to substantiate their strategic operational decisions. This analysis feature has substantially improved Spadel’s communication with its customers, and goes as far as telling sales representatives how often customer visits are warranted. Promotion follow-up is also entirely automatic. In addition, as staff can retrieve customer information from the CRM system directly (not from sales representatives’ brains, where most of it used to be stored), Spadel can also map out the relationships between its various customers. The best CRM solution, however, is only as good as the data you feed it. That is why Selligent’s system comes with a standard set of built-in safeguards. Users, for instance, can only amend information on their own customers, meaning sales representatives cannot change information in their colleagues’ files. Spadel’s sales and marketing teams are excited about the Selligent solution. Summing up their enthusiasm, Bart Laumans, Spadel’s Market Analyst Benelux, said, “I have no doubts that the new system generates much more comprehensive analyses. It is also improving short and long-term management and giving sales-team efficiency and productivity a boost. And, at the end of the day, it’s helping us up our market share, turnover, profits and customer-satisfaction levels.”
Looking ahead
ERP-to-CRM customer-data flow is now up and running and the reverse, CRM-to-ERP data flow, will follow shortly. Successful implementation in Belgium furthermore led Spadel to roll out the solution in the Netherlands in early 2004. Meanwhile, training courses held once a year are helping staff to polish their skills. Spadel will be assessing Selligent’s new web-based solution in 2005. This groundbreaking technology will provide a forward-looking, even less maintenance-hungry, and even more flexible solution.
