CRM from the cloud

The manufacturing solutions of the Swiss company Walter Meier are tailored to the needs of the customer. The machine and tool dealer takes care of everything, from consulting, project planning and manufacturing to training and service, as well as regular field service support. These activities and the effort required for them need to be well planned.

After the Manufacturing Solutions division was spun off from the Walter Meier Group and became independent in 2015, the improvement of the customer relationship management system (CRM) was also high on the agenda along with the adaptation of the IT infrastructure. At that time, ERP/ECC 6.0 was already in use, but in quotation and order creation, Excel lists were still being used in some cases.

There was a separate software solution for the CRM area, but it no longer met current requirements. A more differentiated classification of customers according to sales and potential, for example, could not be mapped with it, and important reporting functions were also missing. Sales and service management were to be better supported with more transparency as well as simple and clear evaluation options.

Hacker attack and relaunch

In the middle of this planning phase, the company was hit by a hacker attack in 2019. After the cyberattack, the data had to be quarantined for weeks, and the CRM database would have had to be reinstalled - with the corresponding costs. In this situation, the Swiss company decided to switch to a new system immediately.

SAP partner FIS had already implemented the spin-off of the ERP system from the former group structure. For CRM, the experts presented the SAP Sales Cloud, supplemented by SAP Field Service Management. The cloud-based CRM solution convinced Herbert Sohm, Head of Sales Development at Walter Meier: "This was exactly what we were looking for: a CRM system that was state-of-the-art and at the same time could be integrated very well into the existing SAP landscape.

Moreover, it is flexibly adaptable - as users, we can even make minor changes ourselves here. This opened up completely new possibilities. The decision in favor of SAP Sales Cloud was thus made. Herbert Sohm took over the internal project management. The project kick-off took place in January 2020.

Focus on field service

In the new CRM system, the four company divisions were to be mapped: Machine and Tool Trade, Tool and Mold Making, and Training Machines. This had to be taken into account and the rights management had to be adapted accordingly. Overall, however, a classic CRM system was required, which is primarily used in field sales: all customer data, sales activities, appointments, reports including image data and attachments summarized on one platform, mobile and also available in offline mode.

Selected data had to be synchronized with the ERP system, calendar data with MS Outlook. Overview and evaluation functions were important for assessing sales opportunities. The processing status and probability of occurrence of individual orders were to be visible, as well as evaluations according to key figures and the classification of customers. Data quality was to be ensured through appropriate mandatory fields. "With a few adjustments, all requirements could already be well mapped in the SAP standard", explains Mirko Dechant, project manager at FIS.

Data structure and quality

The challenges lay in another area: The required data could not simply be extracted and transferred, but first had to be summarized from the backup files, predominantly in the form of lists, compared with the SAP master data and divided according to sales structures.

Appropriate internal knowledge was needed to check and compare the data. This meant that the team around Herbert Sohm initially had a lot of work to do. Together with FIS, this hurdle was overcome, resulting in cleanly structured data ready for import into the SAP Sales Cloud.

Distance Learning

Then, in the spring, the next difficulty: with the corona pandemic and the associated lockdown, physical meetings were suddenly no longer possible, while meetings and training sessions were still scheduled. "Right from the start, we were keen to get our internal users on board with the new system."says Herbert Sohm, "for this we had planned training sessions and feedback meetings". In this case, too, a solution was found: training of the key users in the form of virtual meetings began while the test phase was still underway.

The key user teams each trained other employees, feedback and questions were then fed back to FIS and subsequently discussed. In parallel, the project team worked intensively on the technical implementation. In mid-October 2020, the new system went live as planned. The fact that everything went so quickly was due to the good cooperation and commitment on the part of Walter Meier, as Mirko Dechant emphasizes: "The project management was available for questions and decisions throughout; this is crucial in such projects.."

The new CRM solution offers clear advantages: a consistent, centrally managed system, better data quality, clear responsibilities. The differentiated customer classification with nine customer segments could also be implemented as desired. The hardly dispensable, but also costly field service assignments can now be controlled much better. It will take some time and a change in thinking before all those involved can make proper use of this new transparency, but: "Ultimately, it also helps individual sales representatives to make optimal use of their own resources", as Herbert Sohm explains.

CRM and more: campaign management

After the go-live, campaign management was already implemented in the Sales Cloud: Sales managers can select addressees for special e-mailings and newsletters from among their customers with just a few clicks, organize them into target groups and write to them. The system automatically generates the corresponding task for telephone follow-up and it is possible to see, for example, which customers have opened the mailing.

Further evaluation options, such as lead tracking, are already being planned. The next step will be the introduction of reporting and the customer service solution SAP Field Service Management in combination with SAP Service Cloud. The latter also enables more precise control for repairs and maintenance via an integrated ticket system.

The Swiss company is convinced of the SAP Sales Cloud and FIS as a partner. Above all, because the solution is continuously being developed further. "New developments and constant improvements, that is in line with the spirit of the times. For us, it is the right system - with the right partner," says Herbert Sohm.