Allizé-Plasturgie is a professional union serving the players in the plastics and composites industry. It mobilizes its expertise and its network to feed the strategic and operational reflections of its member companies.s. The CFP is a training and consulting center for plastics and composites companies.
For their CRM modernization project, Allizé-Plasturgie and the CFP chose to turn to Blue Soft Empower to implement Dynamics 365, the Microsoft solution. Olivier Wilttheir IT manager, agreed to explain this choice and to share his experience.
Why did you decide to equip yourself with Dynamics 365?
"We already had a CRM solution for several years. Over time, it did not evolve as we wanted it to. The various changes of editor and its obsolescence convinced us to change.
We wanted to compare the solutions available on the market in an efficient way. We therefore decided to organize functional workshops to review the business processes and create a set of specifications. Thanks to this, we were able to rely on different rating criteria, such as functional specificities or price. We also integrated key users in order to collect their feedback on the ease of use and ergonomics of the various CRM solutions.
After careful consideration, we chose Dynamics 365 because, in addition to meeting most of our criteria, it is compatible with Office 365, with which we are equipped. With Power BI, the reporting service Microsoft's reporting service, which can be accessed directly from the CRM, the offer is almost complete."
How does Dynamics 365 fit into your business?
"Several departments use it on a daily basis. For example, the sales team at the Continuing Education Center automatically generates sales proposals with all the necessary elements (catalog, product description, etc.). Our business requires us to provide a lot of very detailed information, which often makes it difficult to produce quotes. With Dynamics 365, it is easy to generate this kind of proposal, which saves time. Our sales department also works on it to manage opportunities detected from our websites. The process is automated, from the request to the processing by the sales department. For the commercial follow-up, we have someone whose activity is dedicated to Power BI. This person does the reporting with data collected in the CRM but also with data from business tools (ERP) since Dynamics 365 is interfaced with them. With Power BI, we get reporting more modern, more lively reporting. Even if we have a dedicated employee, each sales person can edit reports from a customer file, for example.
Our Legal and HSE Support department, which manages calls from our members, uses the CRM to track requests. The data is entered into the solution, which allows the team to obtain statistics on the topics addressed. During the call, the operator can also check the authorization of the person on line.
The Marketing department uses Dynamics in different ways: to connect all the forms on our sites, to do e-mailing, to export lists... It also uses ClickDimensions to easily design newsletters. Before, the marketing team used a separate tool for this task. Even if it was more ergonomic, it did not provide all the benefits of the current solution, because it was not interfaced with the CRM. Here, ClickDimensions [edited by a Microsoft partner] is an added brick, but it is transparent for the user, who remains in the same interface and can rely on the data contained in Dynamics for sending.
How did the project go with the team Empower ?
"We have reformed the the same workshops as at the beginning, including Empower to write the specifications. The team was able to make proposals and showed us that it had mastered the tool. Throughout the process, we worked in agile mode. As the development progressed, we made progress reports and implemented corrections... This allowed us to move forward fairly quickly and the deployment was rapid."
What did you like about your experience with Empower ?
"Several things. First of all, I never had the impression that it was a gas factory. They didn't sell me a dream, but they did rely on honesty with straightforward answers at every stage of the project. I also appreciated being able to work directly with the team. I was able to explain my needs and each time, the development and corrections were made in real time.
In the end, everything we asked for was put in place, deadlines were met, our needs were understood and the project went very well."
