AmVia, a value-added distributor of IT solutions in the business information delivery and enterprise content management arenas and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, recently upgraded its CRM system to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.
"We had been using a legacy system for many years, but it was no longer able to meet our needs," says Kevin Hurwitz, managing director of AmVia. "We selected Microsoft CRM as our solution of choice, as we believed that it would integrate best with our other office automation tools such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Great Plains and Windows Server 2003.
"We installed Microsoft CRM 1.0 early in 2005, but found that some of the features we needed were not yet available. Therefore, as soon as CRM 3.0 became available, in January of this year, we upgraded to take advantage of the enhanced features built into this offering."
As a distributor of software, from several suppliers to enterprise customers through a reseller channel, AmVia is a complex business with highly mobile staff and identified several issues that needed addressing. These included fault tracking, record keeping, contract management and opportunity management, among others. All this has to be managed through a workforce that works flexible and varied hours from multiple locations and needs to access information at any time from anywhere.
Hurwitz says he believes through the deployment of Microsoft CRM 3.0 that AmVia is back in control and managing effectively.
"Our next priority is to develop our communications capacity, using the marketing tools within CRM 3.0, in order to inform and advise our customers and business partners," he continues.
AmVia worked with LiquidThought to manage the upgrade installation.
"We view it as a great endorsement when our certified partners actually install within their own businesses the Microsoft products that they sell. We believe in the power of software in amplifying people`s impact and driving business success and are certainly very excited that AmVia has endorsed this belief," says Derek Kudsee, Microsoft Dynamics business group manager at Microsoft South Africa.
"While the installation only took a weekend, we know we are embarking on a journey that will take us years to complete, as managing customer relationships is an ongoing process and is fundamental to the way a company works," Hurwitz concludes.
Pain points that AmVia needed to address with the CRM implementation.
* Managing a multitude of relationships. We needed to track the customers using our solutions, the reseller that supplied the solution, and the service partner that maintains it. These relationships are dynamic and ever-changing - enterprise software is not a `sell and forget` product.
* Fault tracking. The nature of software is that faults must be responded to and managed for resolution, with many levels of support and escalation.
* Contract management. Most of our installations have software support contracts which must be managed, and new releases distributed in a timely and correct manner.
* Record keeping. We need to track details of installations accurately - serial numbers, release levels, configurations, etc.
* Communication. We need to communicate with our customers, and the ecosystem (resellers with varying profiles) that supplies and maintains it.
* Opportunity management. Our sales force need tools to manage their opportunities that are integrated within their activity tools (appointments, tasks, etc, within Outlook).
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