Industry: Professional services

Air Partner

Business needs

In late 2015, air charter and aviation services specialist Air Partner came to the conclusion that its legacy installation of Microsoft’s Dynamics NAV ERP system was no longer suitable for its needs. Extensively customised, , it had lost the confidence of users across the business, who either used it inconsistently, or relied on spreadsheets for compliance and financial ‘roll up’ purposes.

In short, it needed replacing. But with what? A fork in the road clearly beckoned: should the business upgrade to a newer version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, or move to Microsoft’s more feature-rich Microsoft Dynamics AX large enterprise ERP system?

Challenge

Although the business was a committed adopter of the Microsoft technology stack, Air Partner’s internal IT organisation recognised that advice from a specialist partner would help them to make an objective decision between these two choices.

But equally, it saw, it might be unwise to rely on the guidance of the IT vendors with which it had worked on previous Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics CRM projects.

Looking for a reliable source of impartial and objective advice on the question of Microsoft Dynamics NAV versus Microsoft Dynamics AX, Air Partner encountered eBECS, and quickly reached a decision to solicit eBECS’ views on the issue.

A short two-day on-site evaluation followed, leading to three clear conclusions, and an overall recommendation. First, Air Partner’s assessment of the suitability of its existing elderly Microsoft Dynamics NAV installation was correct: replacement was called for. Second, as Air Partner had also surmised, it was possible to transition to Microsoft Dynamics AX. But third, there was no real reason for doing so: no aspect of Air Partner’s operations really required Microsoft Dynamics AX’s richer functionality, and moving to Microsoft Dynamics AX would only add cost.

The recommendation: stay with Microsoft Dynamics NAV—but upgrade to the latest version, with eBECS as the implementation partner.

Why eBECS?

But before the project could proceed, relates Air Partner’s project manager and head of transformation, Linzi Barber, it turned out that Air Partner’s board of directors required eBECS to explain why an eBECS-implemented upgrade would not run into difficulties similar to those encountered by previous IT projects.

And the resulting presentation to the board, she adds, amply underscored the view that engaging with eBECS had brought a different calibre of IT expertise to Air Partner.

“There was no doubt that eBECS appeared to know what it was doing, and that it had the people and the skills to undertake the project,” she sums up. “We agreed a clear list of project success criteria, and work began.”

Solution

That said, she stresses, there were undoubted challenges ahead. It had been decided that the new system would go live at the start of the next financial year, in May 2017—and by now, it was already September 2016, with the Christmas and New Year holiday period looming.

It was also evident, based on Air Partner’s previous experiences, that extensive user acceptance training would be required, which would call for bringing to London the appropriate personnel from Air Partner’s operations across North America and Europe.

And finally, the new system would also have to be integrated with Air Partner’s legacy ‘Axis’ booking and quotation system. Longer-term, this could be replaced—but for the time being, it was a fixture, and a fundamental part of how Air Partner operated.

“The timescale was extremely tight, and very challenging, and it is to the credit of everybody in the business that we successfully achieved it, and went live as planned,” sums up Barber.

Benefits

And with the new system in place, the sought-for benefits—many of them enshrined in the project success criteria agreed between eBECS and Air Partner’s board—began to emerge.

A stable, reliable, and supported ERP system, for instance. A common system across the entire Air Partner group—meaning less reliance on to spreadsheet-based period-end roll-ups. And full compliance from a legal, tax, and regulatory perspective.

From this base, says Barber, there will start to come a more efficient and scalable finance function, and better and more timely management information.

More to the point, she stresses, the real benefits of the system will start to be felt outside the finance system, and right across the Air Partner group as more and more people interact directly with it. And with fewer manual processes and spreadsheet-based ‘workarounds’, she observes, the expectation is that Air Partner’s employees will become more productive, and more satisfied in their work.

All in all, she sums up, the project is on track for complete success—something of a departure from past experiences.

“The timescales were tight, but we delivered—which is how we like to work at Air Partner.”

Lombard Risk – Microsoft Dynamics CRM Upgrade

Business needs

Lombard Risk provides collateral management and regulatory compliance solutions for financial services organisations around the world. But although the business had an on-premise instance of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 in place, by mid-2015 it was clear to global sales operations director Nigel Rohan that there were a number of weaknesses in the way that this supported the firm’s marketing and sales processes.

“We needed to be better at capturing contacts, storing marketing data centrally, and then actively using that information to drive marketing campaigns and manage our sales pipeline,” he sums up. “Instead, we were mainly using CRM within the sales function—with our marketing usage of it being limited, and our legal and commercial people making almost no use of it. The more we looked at the situation, the more we realised that we needed something better.”

Challenge

The initial strategy, he explains, had been to use Microsoft’s Business Intelligence functionality to provide the required reporting and dashboard functionality, and then try to drive higher CRM adoption rates through organisational means.

Unwilling to rely solely on the Microsoft solution partner that had implemented the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 solution, Lombard reached out to eBECS on the recommendation of the business’s IT director, who had prior experience of working with the award-winning firm.

A meeting with eBECS in March 2016 proved an eye-opener, recalls Rohan. While happy to talk about a Microsoft Business Intelligence solution, the eBECS team took time out to examine how the existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 system had been configured, and offered advice on how to bring it closer to what were clearly Lombard’s real underlying requirements.

Intriguingly, though, says Rohan, the eBECS consultant in question pointed out how most of those real underlying requirements would be better met by Microsoft’s latest CRM solution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016.

Why eBECS?

It’s fair to say, stresses Rohan, that eBECS had surprised Lombard with its knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 and how to leverage its capabilities. Very quickly, Lombard had found itself with a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 system that was significantly closer to what it needed.

But equally clearly, he adds, eBECS was just as knowledgeable in respect of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016, and a persuasive case could be made for a migration to the newer version, incorporating the same improvements that had been made to the 2013 system.

“eBECS was very, very client-focused, and was giving us a lot of advice about how to do things better,” sums up Rohan. “We could see a way forward to a CRM solution that finally really would give us the benefits we were looking for.”

Solution

Another surprise was to come, though. Longer term, explains Rohan, Lombard had been open about an eventual move to the Cloud, and had already made a decision to move the business to Microsoft Office 365.

That said, the original vision had been to move to yet another on-premise instance of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016. But the eBECS team held out the tantalising prospect of a move directly to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online—a move that would not only create migration efficiencies, but which would also offer new functionality.

“We were delivering a lot of valued information to the senior executive team, and receiving requests to be able to view it on mobile devices such as iPads,” explains Rohan. “With an on-premise instance of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016, we would face the same challenges in terms of going through the on-premise firewalls—but with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, those challenges went away.”

Moreover, he adds, with the goal of driving uptake of the system, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online also made sense in terms of maximising user adoption. Accordingly, the decision was made, and implementation began in July 2016.

Benefits

Just two months later, in early September 2016, Lombard went live with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, prompting Rohan to pay tribute to eBECS’ “professional and world class project management.”

As eBECS had promised, the required functionality delivered on Lombard’s requirements far more than the earlier Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 system, and the Cloud migration had helped drive higher user adoption levels.

“Our legal and commercial people are using the system as a repository for contracts, marketing are using it far more than before, and our senior executive team very much value the greater access to information,” reports Rohan.

And the new system is delivering real business benefits, he stresses.

“Our forecasts are more accurate, we can undertake more marketing campaigns, and we can better measure the impact of those marketing campaigns: it really is making a difference—and while we know that there’s a long way to go, we’re making incredible progress.”

At root, he concludes, the migration to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online has been more than just a system implementation.

“We have benefited from world class project management, coupled to thought leadership and the sharing of best practice. We didn’t have an extensive budget, and eBECS has helped us to extract a significant amount of genuine value from that budget.”

Flogas Customer Excellence Awards Winner – Productivity: Customer Care

Flogas has over 30 years of experience in providing alternative energy solutions to domestic and commercial customers in the UK. From Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) supply to cutting-edge solar PV systems and wind turbines, they deliver affordable energy solutions that are reliable, safe and expertly managed. As the gas industry in the UK is dominated by the big six energy grid players, Flogas provides gas for customers who cannot get on the grid.

Flogas have 110,000 customers. Flogas’ fifty customer service agents take half a million inbound calls a year and also make outbound calls to their customers.

However, Flogas were over reliant on what was in their staff’s heads and it was pretty obvious that Flogas needed a CRM platform. Flogas researched the market and quickly narrowed down that Microsoft CRM was the right solution for them.

John Clements, Flogas Sales & Marketing Director says “It is just breath taking in terms of the difference. Productivity levels have gone through the roof since we put this in place. From an inbound perspective, we get to the customer information very quickly and are to solve their problems very quickly. We have to be a pleasure to buy from and be really easy to do business with. Actually Microsoft is one of our key enablers at our customer care team and our call centre so we can provide that seamless experience.”

He continues “To be recognised by Microsoft is just breath taking for us. It’s credit to our partners at eBECS, it is also credit to our team who have embraced the product. eBECS just stood out and delivered on their promises. They have been really good, leading us from conception all the way to execution. The speed in which they have done the CRM implementation has been breath taking – twelve a half weeks from signing off the CRM project to going live! The feeling is one of genuine excitement for the future.“

Berendsen PLC

Berendsen plc and eBECS leverage the Microsoft IoT platform to gain Operational Efficiencies

Business needs

Publicly-quoted Berendsen plc provides textile services across 16 European countries, renting and laundering textile items such as workwear and hotel linen to a diverse and demanding range of customers.

Volumes—and the scale of the operation—are impressive. The UK hotel and hospital linen services business, for instance, operates out of 30 factories spread across the country, each equipped with a fleet of vehicles collecting used linen and delivering freshly-cleaned replacements.

The problem? Keeping tabs on what linen is where, in order to optimise asset utilisation, and—more importantly—maintaining a regular flow of laundry-fresh towels, sheets and pillow cases, available as and when customers want them.

Challenge

Clearly, from a purely data capture point of view, one obvious challenge was the sheer number of items in circulation. Each day, for instance, Berendsen handles close to 1million pieces of hotel linen. Yet the underlying challenge was a more subtle one, explains Berendsen’s IT director Duncan Macmillan—and one that tended to rule out conventional approaches such as barcoding.

“At root, these are low-value, low volume items, which significantly impacts the cost-benefit equation,” he points out. “The cost of manually barcode-scanning bag after bag of incoming and outgoing linen was simply prohibitive.”

Until early 2014, that is—at which point Berendsen executives began to mull the cost-effectiveness of low-cost passive UHF RFID technology, in the form of tags sewn onto higher value items such as sheets and bath towels.

And technical trials, explains Macmillan, quickly showed not only that RFID technology was indeed a cost-effective proposition, but also a practical one as well.

“In a rollcage pallet containing maybe a thousand tagged items, we could reliably get a first-pass read rate of 995 items or so—that’s a 99.5% success rate,” he explains. “For our purposes, that was more than adequate: the goal was more information, not total information.”

Which left only one problem to resolve. How best to store, analyse and extract value from what was quickly going to become a deluge of RFID data? For even rough estimates of the data streams involved took the proposed project firmly into Big Data territory: four million RFID tags, with on average four tags being read each second of the day.

A discussion with Microsoft led Macmillan to approach two prospective Microsoft partners deemed to have the skill sets to take on the task. But very quickly, Berendsen settled upon eBECS as the preferred choice.

Why eBECS?

“I’ve worked in IT for a long, long time,” explains Macmillan. “It didn’t take long for eBECS to convince me that they had the technical capabilities that we required. In the case of the other potential provider, I was never quite sure.”

And at root, he believes, that is down to an important distinction as to how to approach the acquisition of complex and innovative hi-tech solutions.

“It’s a personal preference, but I don’t like to be sold to by salespeople,” he explains. “I’d rather be sold to by technologists, who can clearly describe how they will help me, and what the solution will actually look like. And with eBECS, I very quickly got to talk to technically-expert people who could do this, and who could answer all my questions.”

Solution

And the solution in question is the Microsoft Azure platform’s cloud-based bundled instance of the open source Apache Hadoop data processing and analytics engine, a technology purpose-designed to scalably handle Big Data volumes at speed.

Termed HDInsight, it can be deployed under Windows or Linux, can process unstructured, semi-structured, or structured data, and readily scales to petabytes on demand—and yet is fully-integrated with familiar Microsoft analysis and visualisation tools such as Excel and Power BI.

So how exactly does it work? XML messages are received by Berendsen from the despatch, processing and return RFID scanning points at each factory, explains Macmillan, and are then automatically sent to the Microsoft Azure Event Hub for processing. Approximately 20 files are received every minute, he adds, with each containing multiple transactions, equating to over 4 transactions per second. Once processed into HDInsight, the XML messages are transferred to Microsoft Azure Blob Storage.

Two forms of analytics then take place.

First, real time insights are provided by Microsoft Azure Stream Analytics, with information presented in Power BI, allowing managers to access dashboards on mobile devices.

And second, to deliver a long-term analytics perspective, the processed XML messages retained in Microsoft Azure Blob Storage are further processed and then stored in Microsoft Azure SQL Database—a cloud-based relational database as a service. Again, Power BI is used to provide insights in the form of dashboards.

Benefits

Clearly, says Macmillan, the project is an investment with a definite financial return. Operational efficiencies will improve; asset utilisation will increase; and asset losses will decrease. But more importantly, he insists, the great operational control that Berendsen will achieve over its linen assets will enable the business to deliver a better service to its customers.

“For hoteliers and hospitals, a daily supply of fresh linen simply isn’t front-of-mind,” he sums up. “They view that as our job—and our investment in RFID and Microsoft Azure HDInsight allows us to perform that job to a higher standard, through better understanding how our customers are using our product, which in turn enables us to better provide them with the linen that they require, when they require it.”

Watch the On-Demand Delivering Microsoft IoT Webinar.

Fitness First

Business needs

As one of the world’s leading health and fitness companies, Fitness First needed customer-facing sales and CRM processes that were as lean and agile as its one million members, spread across 370 clubs in 16 countries.

But that was far from the case, explains Fitness First group Chief Information Officer Ed Hutt.

Instead, he relates, the company ran a legacy on-premise version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM that had been heavily customised. And in addition to high maintenance and operating costs, he adds, the extensive re-keying of data between the CRM system and the company’s membership management system led to a cumbersome selling and sign-up process.

“Instead of assisting our members, or selling more memberships or classes, our club-based staff were spending significant amounts of time on data entry, re-keying customer information into a legacy system that was fast becoming unmaintainable.” he sums up. “One of my first actions was to cancel the ‘support’ contract for this system, and to plan for the replacement based on leading practice”.

Challenge

Clearly, a replacement CRM system was needed. But which CRM system? A dialogue with analyst firm Gartner, explains Hutt, led to a choice of three potential candidates—the two market-leading solutions, among them Microsoft Dynamics CRM On-Line. “My starting point was – the answer is Salesforce.Com. Any advice from Gartner was working against this initial starting point.”

The eventual decision, he relates, would depend on a complex set of factors. Clearly, the chosen solution would need to be a functional ‘fit’ for Fitness First’s requirements. And the rest of the business, he explains, would have to play a significant part in that decision. It was also important that what was sourced, configured and implemented was a Digital solution.

Fitness First have a well-developed Partner ecosystem, so the relationship that could be forged with the relevant solution provider, as well as with the chosen implementation and support partner was very important to the final decision.

And finally, the financials had to make sense: privately-held, Fitness First is owned by private equity firm Oaktree Capital Management, and the prospective return on capital offered by the eventually-chosen solution would need to pass a rigorous business case review.

At a series of presentations from March through to May 2015, the two competing vendors and their implementation partners showcased their solutions to a selection of Fitness First’s business users and management, drawn from right across the company’s operations.

The final decision was taken at a Global Board Meeting at the very end of June 2015 (Microsoft’s Year End). The winner was Microsoft Dynamics CRM On-Line, with eBECS as the implementation partner.

“Financially, the decision stood up very well. Very well indeed.” sums up Hutt. “And in contrast to the other solution on offer, Microsoft Dynamics CRM On-Line was accepted by the business because of its simplicity and familiarity. This mattered in terms of the definition of a ‘digital’ solution – simplicity, familiarity, ease of use and especially, the people from eBECS who had presented what was possible and deliverable in simple and easy to understand terms.”

Why eBECS?

“eBECS is a company with a big reputation in Microsoft. I had not realised the size and scope of eBECS’ operation before I went to Microsoft Convergence. The people we met knew their stuff and had ideas about how we could develop Dynamics CRM On Line further; Fitness First wants to work with innovative partners”. stresses Hutt.

And in eBECS, he adds, he saw an implementation partner that was not only innovative, but also comfortable working right across the Microsoft technology ‘stack’—an important consideration, given that the replacement CRM system was just one of five strategic initiatives on the drawing board, each requiring strong technology capabilities.

Moreover, he emphasises, there was a considerable prize at stake: a better and more efficient sales process, right across Fitness First’s global operations, and right across its channels to market—consumers, business customers, and digital.

“Ultimately, CRM, sales and this system is at the absolute core of what we do,” he sums up. “And so it was vital that this system was implemented as capable as possible, and as quickly as possible.”

Solution

Work began in July 2015, with the goal of developing and refining a single global market template for the new Digital system. The strategy: to build a sales platform that catered for Fitness First’s global requirements, but did so without requiring customisation and gave a jumping off point for further configuration and change to deliver competitive advantage.

“The intention was clear,” stresses Hutt. “We want a global template in which nothing has to be customised, but yet which offers through configuration everything that the business needs to be a Digital business, irrespective of geography. In every operation, the acid test is to have a solution that is upgradeable on the standard Microsoft technology path, and also convertible back to the single global template.”

And by the end of November 2015, that template had been developed, although rollout in the pilot region was deferred until February 2016, in order to avoid any disruption or distraction to the immediate post-Christmas period—a period of peak demand for gym and fitness services.

The plan: by mid-summer 2016 the replacement CRM system would be live right across Fitness First’s global operations.

Benefits

And when fully live, notes Hutt, there are clear expectations about the resulting benefits.

“It’s a better platform for building the business,” he enthuses. “We get a better sales process, more channels to reach our customers and prospective customers—e-mail, text, mailshot, or mobile app—and more ways to build our average revenue-per-customer. We also have a Digital platform from which we can build more services focused on the customer”

In addition, there are clear expectations in terms of lead conversion, upselling and member retention, with a slicker CRM process contributing to all three.

Efficiencies result, as well. Enrolments within the CRM system now take three minutes. A reduction from 8 minutes with the old system. A critical addition is the integration with the Membership Management system saving an addition eight minutes per customer – total 13 minutes per member. Multiply that time saving over a million members, suggests Hutt, and the financial, service, success and operational impact is considerable.

And finally, he adds, there are the undoubted tangible cost savings that will accrue.

“We’re saving hundreds of thousands of pounds on an annual basis,” he sums up. “We’re moving away from a system that was expensive to run, expensive to maintain, effectively unmaintainable, and which impeded our corporate effectiveness. And in its place: Microsoft Dynamics CRM On-Line, Digital and in the Cloud—a CRM system which finally matches our vision of ‘fit for purpose’ for one of the world’s leading health and fitness businesses.”

Chinese Language Publishing Ltd

Chinese language Publishing Limited creates courses for foreign language training and has created a set of learning resources for children aged from 5 to 16 years and they have 670 customers in 67 countries. The company works with HANBAN, which is part of the Chinese Government that is responsible for delivering Chinese language and culture across the world.

Some of the key benefits of Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

Constantly improving customer service through knowing what the customer is buying and downloading, and how they are using the resources.
Easy to use interfaces and systems that make it easy to maintain contact with customers on almost a daily basis rather just every few months.
The ability to create a ‘partner’ relationship with customers, rather than a just a selling operation.
Big company IT capability but at small company prices; for example, there are no expensive hosting costs.
A professional marketing capability and appearance without the need to employ more staff.
Seamless linking to blogs, Twitter and Facebook, which is where the vast majority of its customers search for information and feedback.
Initial fear of a new CRM system quickly addressed by being up and running in just two days, which included importing a complex international database.
A Cloud solution that is fast, easy to use and available 24×7 and offers complete peace of mind that all the company the data is safe.
The realisation that the business is fundamentally an IT services company and relies on IT as a central part of its business.

Macmillan Cancer Support

When people affected by cancer call Macmillan Cancer Support, the organization needs to capture their information and set up workflows that address individual customer needs. To implement this capability, Macmillan deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Consequently, customers tell their often heart-wrenching stories only once, and Macmillan staff save time and improve service by reviewing the details of previous calls when follow-up contacts occur. With the help of Microsoft Dynamics, Macmillan Cancer Support can serve patients better and help those patients through their fight with cancer.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission

War Graves Commission Automates Ordering Process with CRM System

Tasked with rapidly designing and implementing a new system for ordering replacement headstones within its cemeteries, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission turned to Microsoft Dynamics CRM and award-winning Microsoft Dynamics Partner eBECS. Against a tight deadline—and with a requirement to codify and develop more than 500 complex rules to govern automated headstone inscriptions—eBECS and Microsoft Dynamics CRM delivered to schedule.

Business Needs

Based in Maidenhead, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is funded by six member governments of the Commonwealth—Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The commission honours the 1.7 million servicemen and women who died in the two world wars, and cares for cemeteries and memorials at 23,000 locations in 153 countries.

The commission, explains Liz Woodfield, Head of Information Systems, needed to increase the production of headstones from 5,000 to 22,000 a year, but it also had to speed up the replacement process. And, with the centenary of World War One approaching, timely delivery was vital. “Our headstone ordering process was largely paper based,” says Woodfield. “It required considerable manual intervention for both data validation and entering headstone information. It also relied on information from a number of different databases. There were significant delays between ordering and delivery.

”The Commonwealth War Graves Commission needed to establish a seamless process that required minimal manual intervention—from the point of ordering through to production.

Solution

In mid-2012, a formal request for information, specifying the requirements for the system, was sent to a number of potential suppliers. The majority of the responses suggested Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a solution. Woodfield says: “Selecting a partner was difficult, but two of the companies stood out. We chose eBECS because we felt comfortable that it could help us work through a complex process, and that it would develop and incorporate additional functionality with Microsoft Dynamics. We also felt confident that eBECS would be able to meet our deadline.

”With the go-ahead being given in late August 2012, eBECS and the commission decided on a pilot implementation date of 14 January 2013. Woodfield says: “It was incredibly tight, with minimal room for error or delay. It quickly became clear that the data we were working with was far more complex than anyone had suspected. Plus, critical data on individual casualties wasn’t always in the format we expected.“

We had to change the structure of our casualty database to feed in all the additional information required to order replacement headstones. Personal inscriptions had to be inserted into the database and a review of the regimental rules showed that the complexity of this data meant we would have to defer implementation of some of these rules until after the go-live date.”

Even so, working closely with commission personnel, the eBECS team was able to codify and fully automate more than 500 inscription rules, automatically creating a text file for use by the headstone-engraving machine.

Benefits

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the commission saw its project delivered on time. The headstone ordering process is now automated, with inspectors’ visits being much more productive. “eBECS delivered a functioning system in the required timescale, allowing inspectors to go on site and start using the system in a live environment,” says Woodfield. “CRM is an important part of our overall information systems strategy, and, with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, eBECS delivered a critical building block.”

Timely delivery to tight deadline. The project went live on the target day of 14 January 2013. But a lot of work still lay ahead. “It was very much a ‘live’ pilot,” says Woodfield. “We were working through issues as we encountered them, in a live environment.” Critically, the implementation team had one factor in its favour—there were still orders in the manufacturing queue that had been placed under the previous, manual system. These orders provided a buffer during which improvements to the new system could be made. By April, the system was live.

Automated process increased effectiveness. Now, inspectors in the field are more effective. When they visit cemeteries, they’re equipped with tablet PCs loaded with data from the commission’s casualty database. Using these, they generate headstone orders that are then routed automatically to either the records department at head office or the headstone workshop in Arras, France, to be fulfilled.

If there’s a discrepancy between the headstone on the ground and the data downloaded onto the tablet, it is forwarded to the records department at head office for validation. If the data meets the system’s completeness check, the order is sent directly to the engraving machine at the commission’s production centre.The headstone is then engraved and shipped to the appropriate cemetery in order to be erected. “We now have an automated process for headstone replacement that has reduced manual intervention from 100 per cent to less than 20 per cent of headstones.

This percentage will reduce significantly again once we have completed our review of the regimental rules,” says Woodfield. A large part of the credit, she insists, is down to eBECS and its promise that the tight deadline would be met.

Nacro

Needing greater visibility and control of its pipeline of funding bids for projects, crime reduction charity Nacro turned to Microsoft Dynamics CRM—and eBECS, the UK Dynamics Reseller of the Year. A low-cost implementation, over just four months, saw Nacro’s geographically diverse bid pipeline coordinated within a single, centrally-managed pipeline, allowing people to work more efficiently and share information together. Just as importantly, ‘dashboards’ provide senior management with at-a-glance control metrics.

Business Needs

As an established charity with 50 years of experience, Nacro has been repositioning itself as a champion of social justice which continues to put crime prevention and reduction at its core. They use their knowledge and experience to help the most vulnerable in the community to change their lives and to reach their full potential and aspirations.

They do this by addressing social exclusion, inequality of opportunity and deprivation. Nacro’s work focuses on providing housing, education, employment, consultancy and training across England and Wales.

But in recent years, the funding environment in which the charity works has been changing rapidly. An increasing number of once centrally-managed projects, initiated at national government level, have been devolved to local bodies such as regionally-based councils and individual prisons, leading to an increase in the number and complexity of the bids for funding that the charity must make.

“The challenge with Nacro was to find a way to better manage the bidding process, with all information coordinated within a central resource. We also recognised that the number of resources needed to submit bids was increasing,” says Nacro’s Head of Business Strategy, Simon Groom.

Given Nacro’s regional structure, it was also difficult for the charity to establish a clear picture of which bids it was working on at any one time, the status of those bids and when the bids required submission.

“We wanted a more streamlined bidding process, and one which communicated the required information in a timely and effective manner,” says Rider-Dobson. “But we also wanted greater visibility into the process, so that we could manage it better, make improvements, and liaise better with our partners and funding agencies.”

Solution

The previous head of ICT at Nacro, it turned out, had prior experience of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems at other not-for-profit organisations, and recognised that a CRM system would deliver the required functionality. What’s more, relates Rider-Dobson, that prior experience extended to recognition that Microsoft was a clear leader in the field.

Accordingly, a recommendation to Nacro management to evaluate Microsoft CRM was quickly accepted, and the search began for an implementation partner. Soon, explains Rider-Dobson, eBECS emerged as a strong contender to provide implementation assistance, thanks to its extensive experience with charities, and as a Microsoft-recommended CRM Online cloud partner.

“We wanted a tailored CRM trial before committing resources and budget, and eBECS was able to support this requirement quickly, and at low cost,” he notes. Additionally, eBECS was able to add value by independently auditing and documenting the business requirements that had been identified.

With board approval for the CRM project given in June 2012, work began in the early autumn. A scoping workshop in September saw all the key players—including eBECS personnel—identifying and agreeing the workflows and deciding the metrics and reports that the CRM system would generate.

“We followed a standard implementation methodology, and did a lot of the work ourselves, in order to keep costs down,” says Rider-Dobson. Development work took place during October and November, and user acceptance testing began in December.

And in the first few days of 2013, just four months after starting work, Nacro’s CRM system went live, with the plan being to train the community of 80 licensed users as requests for bids came through.

“All other channels for submitting bids were closed,” says Rider-Dobson. “With the CRM system the only means of preparing and submitting bids, it’s a powerful incentive to gain familiarity and ‘buy in’.”

Benefits

The transformation in the processing of bids has been significant, reports Rider-Dobson. There’s far more visibility into the preparation of bids, he explains, with Nacro staff working more efficiently, and being better able to share and re-use information.

“Instead of data being held on regional servers, it’s all stored centrally,” he says. “Everyone can see the bid pipeline, and we can manage our bid preparation work more efficiently.”

Better still, he points out, the CRM system’s in-built ‘dashboard’ provides senior management with instant metrics on key aspects of Nacro’s bid preparation and performance.

“The dashboard has proved very popular,” says Rider-Dobson. “At a glance, management can see the status of pre-qualification questionnaires, outstanding Invitations To Tender, current bids, bids won, and bids not won.”

What’s next? Further fine-tuning, it seems, and an extension into areas such as the risk assessments associated with bids.

“People have seen the system, like it, and now understand much better what they can do with it,” he sums up. “We’re already talking to eBECS about how to take the project forward, and build on the success to date.”

G4S Transitions To Microsoft Dynamics CRM

In May 2013, security and business processing outsourcing provider G4S was notified that it had been awarded the contract to take over the running of the UK government’s Child Maintenance Options call centre service, established to provide impartial support to help separating parents to make informed choices about child maintenance.

The contract with the existing provider would terminate on September 28th, and G4S needed to be able to commence delivery the next working day. More challenging still, dramatic changes in child maintenance processes and procedures were being introduced, with the service set to become the mandatory ‘gateway’ through which all future child maintenance agreements would be processed.

“It was something of a ‘perfect storm’, for which we had just four and a half months to prepare,” explains Jon Adams, director of strategy and operational improvement within the central government service division of G4S. “We needed a very rapid mobilisation indeed.”

The use of Microsoft Dynamics CRM as the backbone of G4S’s delivery platform had already been decided upon, although no implementation partner had been selected. Nor had the detail been finalised of how Microsoft Dynamics CRM would interface with the system to be delivered by the chosen telephony provider, Huawei Technologies.

“We had sought other proposals, but eBECS quickly impressed us with their grasp of what needed doing, and their willingness to fully engage with our timescales,” explains Adams. “The ‘go live’ date wasn’t negotiable, and it was vital that the service saw a smooth transition to G4S as the provider.”

That, in turn, would require eBECS to work closely with a number of organisations: G4S itself, telephony provider Huawei Technologies, the nominated IT support partner Aegis, and the sponsoring government department, the Department for Work and Pensions.

The plan: roll out a ‘core’ capability, available to meet service obligations on Day One, and then build out from there, adding the management and reporting capabilities that were necessary to demonstrate compliance with Department for Work and Pensions’ performance requirements.

Tight integration

A key requirement of the Department for Work and Pensions when awarding the contract for the running of the Child Maintenance Options call centre service was that callers’ details be automatically available to customer service agents on screen.

In addition, eBECS was to provide a ‘post code lookup’ facility, automatically presenting customer service agents with callers’ address details.

Explains Jon Adams, director of strategy and operational improvement within the central government service division of G4S:

“The need for a fully-integrated call centre not only required eBECS and the chosen telephony provider, Huawei Technologies, to work closely together, but also for the two respective technologies to work closely together as well—which was the first time that this had been attempted.”

Results

The Child Maintenance Options call centre service went live as planned, with G4S customer service agents answering telephone calls from 8am on Monday September 30th 2013. Two months later, the service became the official Child Maintenance ‘gateway’, allocating callers a mandatory unique case reference number. Still further policy-driven changes, introduced in July 2014, then drove even higher call volumes to the service.

Specific benefits of using Microsoft Dynamics CRM include:

* Highly extensible design

As a fully-functional, best-of-breed CRM solution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is readily extensible, and capable of handling and automating the most complex business processes and workflows. eBECS specialists worked closely with G4S and the Department for Work and Pensions to develop processes, scripts, and screen designs that maximised flexibility while optimising agent productivity.

* Fully-integrated customer service

As a high-profile government service helping people to deal with highly stressful personal circumstances, integrating the capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Huawei Technologies allowed G4S to offer a seamless call centre service, yet one meeting the highest standards of confidentiality and impartiality.

* Improved process compliance and reporting

When awarding the Child Maintenance Options call centre service to G4S, the Department for Work and Pensions specified a number of contractual metrics in terms of call handling response times, process capabilities, and call volumes. A full suite of reporting and management metrics, contained in an 80-page monthly report, allows G4S to fully demonstrate target compliance and avoid the imposition of penalties.

* Secure data handling

As is vital for a government-provided service handling highly sensitive personal details, Microsoft Dynamics CRM conforms to the highest security standards. In addition, a requirement of the contract was that data storage meet the government’s own IL3 security specification, involving accreditation to standards based on ISO 27001, but with more stringent requirements.

* Rapid implementation

As a proven solution with a long pedigree and extensive body of live installations, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is capable of delivering a fully-functional—yet high-quality and reliable—advanced CRM capability on an aggressive and demanding timescale.

Industry: Professional services

UK: +44 (0) 8455 441 441 Ireland: +353 (0)1 893 4831 USA: +1 (678) 701 5856 Saudi Arabia: +966 (11)920 007299

UK: +44 (0) 8455 441 441
Ireland: +353 (0)1 893 4831
USA: +1 (678) 701 5856
Saudi Arabia: +966 (11)920 007299