Impact Handling

Impact Handling was using a system to mainly track leads and mature them into opportunities ready for the sales team. Due to impractical functionality within the system, engagement was affected, and users found themselves working outside of the CRM and often using spreadsheets. This led to data being stored in different places, meaning tracking customer engagement, pipeline and sales was extremely labor-intensive. Reporting was also a challenge due to data being stored on lots of different spreadsheets and thus prevented management from having a clear overview of sales data.

Another inefficient but essential process that will be the focus of this Case Study, was the quoting process and generation of supporting quote and order-related documentation such as proposals, order acknowledgments, and rental agreements. For every order, multiple documents were required to be produced; a time-consuming task which due to being done manually also left room for human error. This process was one of the main challenges to be addressed within our solution, alongside the following:

1. Increase operational efficiency
2. Enhance employee productivity
3. Improve management visibility

After gathering detailed requirements, Pragmatiq designed, developed, and implemented a bespoke quoting solution. This replaced the manual workload, enabled their sales teams to mature opportunities, generate sales quotes efficiently, accurately, and in a professional manner. The solution enabled the sales consultants to build forklift trucks across multiple franchises and models with the desired configuration and sales options. Based on the configuration and purchase options, complex finance calculations were computed.

In addition to this, we implemented a document generation tool that auto-populates data, directly from the records in Dynamics 365 into the required documentation (this functionality is available within Dynamics, however it has limitations and was judged that a document generation tool was the correct approach).

Alongside this, we implemented Power BI and created a management dashboard giving visibility into quotes, sales orders, forecasts, and lost orders. As a result, managers would gain increased insight into data, allowing them to make more informed strategic decisions. From a training perspective, the business can see where business units and depots are under-performing and over-performing and provide better additional training and support in those areas.

Towards the end of this Phase 1 project, a series of User Training sessions were then undertaken to ensure users fully understood how to use the CRM, the benefits of this and how it can improve their day-to-day processes.

Through the implementation of our proposed solution, the following benefits were realised:

• Efficient and controlled quoting – The sales teams are now able to generate quotes quickly and accurately, saving time and increasing operational efficiency. This new quoting tool has saved around 75% manual administration time spent on processing orders. To provide more context, this has reduced the manual administration concerning order processing and document generation from around 8 to 2 hours per month, per sales consultant.
• Single truth of the customer – All client information is now held in a single Dynamics 365 platform, that is accessible to all the users within the organisation. This has improved the efficiency, increased engagement between departments and will enable some manual steps in the process to be automated.
• Improved management visibility – We implemented Microsoft Power BI meaning data was consolidated in one central application. This allowed Impact Handling to make insightful decisions, identify trends & performance in all sales activities and help management gain a 360-degree view across the entire organisation.
• Connected departments – Internal communication has improved as Impact Handling now has the ability to move information between departments, without requiring normal communication like phone calls, e-mails, etc, resulting in increased efficiency. Alongside this, users are also following aligned processes and working within one system, enhancing collaboration and cohesiveness across the business.
• Moved away from manual pricelists – Operating with manual pricelists increased the chances for human error and is a challenge to control across sales teams. Moving away from manual pricelists has provided extra control and allowed sales management to ensure that the pricing in the system is accurate, up-to-date, and accessible by all sales consultants across business units.