IT Consultancy Revolutionizes Reporting & Process Efficiency with Microsoft Dynamics CRM

MAIDENHEAD, U.K. - Sept. 3, 2013 - PRLog -- Microsoft CRM gold partner, Preact Limited http://www.preact.co.uk has published a new case study that details how its client, ramsac limited have achieved widespread benefits by implementing Dynamics CRM.

ramsac are a leading IT strategy and support consultancy based in Surrey, UK supporting over 5,000 end users and responding to over 20,000 support requests each year.

As an outsourced IT specialist ramsac offer everything from phone support to part time IT director fulfilment including solutions for schools, charities and small to medium enterprises.

Following several years of sustained growth ramsac needed to streamline their operations and remove risks of potential human error from their processes.

ramsac’s legacy Customer Relationship Management application was no longer supported so a new solution was sought that would improve their process efficiency and support further business growth.

As IT experts ramsac needed no introduction to Microsoft’s solutions as commercial director, Dan May explains: “We use Microsoft products extensively across the business and everyone is used to the Microsoft Office. When we looked at Dynamics CRM we immediately realised that it would be incredibly intuitive for any users already familiar with Outlook and Office.

It was also infinitely configurable to adapt to our needs and we liked the many off the shelf plug-ins that made it a cost effective tool to develop.”

The Results

ramsac deployed the on-premise edition of Microsoft Dynamics CRM to connect their teams and manage all their key process:

“We’ve implemented Dynamics throughout the business, everything from Sales and Marketing to Service Delivery, Finance to Operations, Purchasing to Technical support.” continues Dan.

“The whole company is now working with one centralised set of data, ensuring that we all have immediate access to significant customer information. It’s also enabled us to become a paperless office – we hold all data including our time sheets, purchase orders, schedules and quotes in CRM so we no longer have desks full of paperwork!”

As a process driven company ramsac were eager to apply the workflow management capabilities of Dynamics CRM to deal with one of their main project aims. Dan May reports that their expectations have been exceeded:

“Through CRM work flows and processes we’ve automated much of our work and our team are encouraged to work in line with best practices because Microsoft Dynamics thinks ahead and creates the next task or activity for them.”

There are numerous instances where Microsoft Dynamics has improved ramsac’s processes and Dan cites one example that has benefited their service delivery team:

“We’re now able to enter our engineer time sheets directly into CRM which means we no longer have to wait for the engineers to have an office day in order to return their paperwork. As a result, we’re now billing in real time and reducing our billing time scales.”

“We manage our on-site tasks through Microsoft Dynamics so when an engineer completes a task the follow up is instant – they no longer wait until the end of the day to submit a report. If they complete a task at 9am that needs follow up action it’ll be immediately assigned to the office team for urgent attention. By sharpening these processes Dynamics CRM has enabled us to respond to clients up to a day earlier than we previously achieved.”

Dynamics CRM has given ramsac the flexibility to manage all its relationship information in a single application as Dan explains:

“As well as using CRM to track our sales, servicing and marketing campaigns we also store all of our clients networking information and inventories into Dynamics. That’s enabled our on-site and off-site technical teams to have access to the same set of data and easily keep it updated.”

Another significant benefit that ramsac has gained from Dynamics CRM is better business reporting: “Its reporting function has revolutionised our leadership team meetings” confirms Dan.

“Through CRM we now have up to date, accurate management information that we’ve completely personalised to our specific needs, and that’s enabling us to make more informed strategic decisions.

We can report on the obvious things like sales performance and pipeline information, but we also see staff utilisation reports, customer trends and statistics, purchasing information, marketing campaign results, chargeable time availability and support call SLA performance.”

ramsac partnered with Preact to develop and support their Microsoft Dynamics CRM system and Dan enthuses about the value of the relationship: “Preact very quickly understood our business needs and processes and they’ve given us a solution that has met all of our needs.

They work with us on an on-going basis as we further refine and develop this. Every time we have a new idea, or an additional CRM requirement they listen and propose a practical solution. So far we haven’t thrown anything at them that they have not had an answer for!”

Dan finds Preact’s approach similar to their own ethos:

“They are highly technical, product experts, but remain focused on business needs, and great service. Their support desk staff are knowledgeable, efficient and friendly and their technical consultants get the job done with the minimum of fuss. I really like the professional but realistic standards in their work, they understand the SME space well and don’t make outlandish proposals that would be unaffordable for most medium sized firms.”

Dan has already introduced several organisations to Preact and has no hesitation in recommending their CRM services:

“Preact have consistently delivered a high level of customer care and attention to detail. I find their team to be professional, knowledgeable, credible and responsive. We have worked with other developers in the past and I’ve never had more confidence in a firm than I do with Preact. Their technical knowledge of the Microsoft Dynamics platform is second to none.”

In conclusion Dan confirms the ramsac management team are delighted by the results they’ve achieved: “Microsoft Dynamics has saved us thep overhead of investing in further administrative posts and it’s definitely reduced the error rate across our business. It’s given us sensible real-time information on which to base decisions and we’re certain there’s even more to come!”