Alstom John Thompson (AJT), a subsidiary of Alstom Electrical Industries (Pty) Ltd, has deployed Maximizer CRM 10.5 licenses at its Package Boiler division to assist key sales executives in generating and coordinating new plant sales between its export and local market departments located in Cape Town, Gauteng and Natal.

The subsidiary is a boiler and environmental solutions company serving the utility and industrial markets and is involved with world-competitive design, manufacture, construction and maintenance of industrial boilers. The company also designs and manufactures related products, incorporating heat transfer technology and selectively undertakes high integrity fabrication work. Neville Sharwood, technical manager at AJT Package Boilers, says the purpose of the Maximizer implementation at the three sites is to not only coordinate and tie data into the local branch offices but also to keep all the data in a centralised repository. Maximizer will assist the sales force in their day to day functions, such as enquiry management, tracking all interactions with clients, building relationships and assisting with sales processes across the divisions. “Previously we had a custom-written CRM (customer relationship management) application with other pockets of data everywhere which was not synchronised. A shared data base is vital for a CRM system to function properly.” “When you respond more dynamically to customer needs, you beat the competition and win more deals. I really want the sales force to rely on the data to achieve their goals,” he says.

From a management point of view, Sharwood says the dashboarding will assist him to monitor individual performance with real-time metrics and alerts, including lead follow-up status and win/loss analysis as well as the reporting functionality, which will be more accurate and less time consuming to produce. Sharwood says what clinched the Maximizer deal is its ease of deployment with little or no customisation or additional IT hardware spend involved, even for its remote connections. “Additionally, we already had SQL Server installed and have a site license. I could avoid large costs and the fact that Camsoft Solutions, the software reseller, has an excellent understanding of our requirements. As a result we have received very good support,” he says.

Nelia Roberts, CRM sales specialist at Camsoft Solutions, says the implementation went very smoothly and user training has already been completed. “Across various industries we have helped ambitious companies, such as AJT, to increase revenue and customer satisfaction by consolidating all the contacts, expectations, action items, forecasts, reports, results and interactions into one central hub. And at Camsoft we’ve always had the philosophy that we don’t close deals but rather open relationships that are rewarding for the customer.”