Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Linfox Gets Closer to Customers and Sharpens Business Development with ‘One Click’ CRM
Overview
Country or Region:Australia
Industry:Transportation
Customer Profile
Linfox is one of Australia’s largest privately owned companies. With more than 9,000 personnel, it provides supply chain management services to many public and private sector organisations in a variety of industries.
Business Situation
Due to sustained growth and a major acquisition in 2003, Linfox found itself with twice as many customers across a wider range of industries. The information about these customers was kept in disparate systems.
Solution
Microsoft CRM allows Linfox people across the company to access up-to-date and thorough customer intelligence from a central store of information. The solution is also a mechanism for Linfox staff to record information about customers.
Benefits
Accurate information about customers
Ability to speak with one cons
Ability to measure cost and effectiveness
Efficient reporting / “We needed to re-engineer the business development process, ensure the CRM integrated with that process, and ensure the CRM was foremost a source of information…”
Will Arnott, Executive General Manager Business Development & Marketing,, Linfox Australia
Executive General Manager, Business Development & Marketing, Linfox Australia
Following a major acquisition in February 2003, transportation and supply chain management leader, Linfox, practically doubled its customer base overnight. With vital information about customer contacts and business development opportunities dispersed throughout many internal systems, Linfox needed to aggregate its intelligence to improve its customer relationship management. Using Microsoft Business Solutions CRM, the company developed a single customer contact system that now allows managers across the business to keep in touch with a broad range of Linfox customers throughout Australia and the Asia-Pacific. The customer contact function at Linfox is faster, more accurate, more current and easier to use than ever before.
Situation
Linfox is a classic Australian success story. Started by Lindsay Fox in 1956 with one truck, it is now a multinational enterprise with a fleet of more than 4,700 vehicles, 250 sites, more than one million square metres of warehouse space, two airports and operations in eight countries. In Australia, Linfox is structured into industry streams covering retail, beverage, fast moving consumer goods, fulfilment, cash services, freight forwarding, petrochemical and building products.
Linfox also has a strong presence in Asia. It established offices in Malaysia and Thailand in 1993 and Hong Kong in 2001. Last year, it started operations in mainland China and Indonesia. Vital to Linfox's success, particularly in Asia, is its understanding of the cultural, political and business issues in each country. Linfox also maintains high and consistent standards for facilities, equipment and employees. The company demonstrates this commitment to safety, customer service and continuous improvement by significant investment in leading-edge information technology.
Linfox wants to be the supply chain solutions provider of choice throughout the Asia-Pacific region. It believes this is possible only by providing tailored supply chain solutions that create value for customers. This is why Linfox executives decided to upgrade its customer relationship management. They believed this would help the company manage the alliances, relationships, product movements and information flows that are critical to the success of its customers' businesses.
When Linfox acquired Mayne Logistics in February 2003, its customer base doubled. A fundamental requirement for Linfox was to develop a single customer contact strategy. Given the size and diversity of the new business, it was imperative that Linfox managers were up to date and aware of all contacts, activities, opportunities and information concerning customers.
However, Linfox laboured with disparate and disaggregated information covering general customer information, customer contacts, contract information and business development opportunities and activities. The company's customer information was scattered in Microsoft® Excel spreadsheets, an Access database, and even in Word documents. Various parts of the business had different contact management systems and most of them were informal. Some customer details, such as contact numbers and addresses, differed from system to system.
This created a situation where business development managers from different parts of Linfox might not be aware of business development activities conducted by other parts of the business. There was also no effective means of measuring the cost and success of the business development process at Linfox.
The missing component at Linfox was a centralised repository of all business development and customer information. The main business issue was the lack of information sharing between employees. Many of the company's existing systems were outdated. Linfox needed a way to centralize its account and contact management systems.
Solution
Linfox wanted a CRM system that could capture all customer and business development information and activities. To achieve this goal, Linfox had to re-engineer its business development process, integrate CRM into its business development, and ensure the CRM was foremost a source of information rather than just a place to record information. It also had to integrate the CRM with commonly used functions such as email and electronic diaries.
However, the first step was to cleanse and correct all of the company's existing information.
"Our experience is that it is best to work out the business processes before looking at solutions," says Will Arnott, Executive General Manager of Business Development and Marketing at Linfox Australia. "The solution must be customisable, and the CRM solution should meet the needs of the business, not vice versa."
Linfox had to decide what specific information it wanted to track about each customer – business type, industry, current status, contacts, and so on. To help Linfox work out how to get the most from its CRM system, the company enlisted Datum, the data and content management solutions arm of the Senetas Group. Andrew Volz, a senior consultant with Senetas, says getting the data into the system was the biggest challenge. "There was no tool available," he says. "We basically had to write the program ourselves to get the data in to begin with."
Linfox chose Microsoft® Business Solutions CRM to consolidate multiple contact sources into a centralized database and to keep track and report on customer sales activities. "Microsoft CRM was easy to implement into our existing network infrastructure and users are already familiar with the Microsoft® Outlook® interface," says Simon Chapman, Systems Engineer at Linfox Australia.
"Microsoft CRM is a good fit with the existing IT infrastructure. It ties in strongly with Active Directory®, Microsoft SQL Server™, Outlook and Exchange."
Microsoft CRM is now used by about 85 people throughout Linfox, including business development managers and personal assistants.
Benefits
The benefits of Microsoft CRM at Linfox are still materialising, but there has been enough return on investment so far for the company to be certain about some results. Says Volz: "We have pushed the envelope with what Microsoft CRM can do, we have heavily customized it, we have added some new functionality, and we have been able to create something that will be a success for Linfox in the long-term."
Improved Visibility Across the Company
Perhaps the major benefit thus far for Linfox is the improved visibility of all customer information and business development activities across the company. Having the luxury of one central source of current and relevant information allows Linfox managers to be more proactive in not only nurturing relationships with customers, but also in co-ordinating their approach.
"Microsoft CRM allows us to identify new business opportunities and better manage our customer information," says Arnott. "We can now view the history of a customer relationship, both the good and the bad, and business units know whether a current relationship exists before visiting potential customers."
Information that is More Accurate and More Up-To-Date
Developing true empathy with customers and the business conditions they face requires frequent and meaningful contact – often with more than one person within their organisations. A CRM system stocked with useful information has allowed Linfox managers to better understand their customers. The Microsoft CRM solution now in place at Linfox also allows the company to establish and maintain links to other sources of industry information, research and market intelligence such as business information provider, IBIS.
Easy Measurement of Cost and Success of Business Development
Linfox also now enjoys sharper insights into how the company approaches existing and potential customers. Microsoft CRM provides easy measurement of the cost and success of its business development process.
"Microsoft CRM has dramatically reduced time to source information and to report on our own business development activities," says Chapman. "It was easily customised to suit Linfox, and it allowed us to better measure the business development process. The total cost of ownership of Microsoft CRM is also exceptional."
Ease and Speed of Customization
Volz says this is the strongest selling point for Microsoft CRM. "It is easy to customize from a technical viewpoint, but also easy to customize from a business viewpoint," he says. "It is cheap for the business to add or change existing screen layouts. For example, Will could call me with an ad hoc request and I could have that up and running within half an hour. With some of the larger CRM systems, that would take days as a minimum. There is also no need for programming so there is less chance for error."
Microsoft Business Solutions
Microsoft Business Solutions offer integrated business applications and services that allow small and midsize organizations and divisions of large enterprises to connect employees, customers, and suppliers for improved efficiency. The financial management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and analytics applications work with other Microsoft software, including the Microsoft Office System and the Windows operating system, to streamline processes across an entire organization. This gives businesses insight to respond rapidly, plan strategically, and execute quickly. Microsoft Business Solutions are delivered through a worldwide network of channel partners that provide specialized services and local support tailored to a company’s needs.
For more information about Microsoft Business Solutions, go to: