Zentrum für Logistik und Unternehmensplanung

“It’s a super transparent system that enables the whole team to stay on top of their work and stay in the loop.”
– Jana Beyer, Management Assistant, ZLU

Company Information
Industry: Logistics
Location: Berlin, Germany
Product: Maximizer 9

Operating since 1991, and based in Berlin, Zentrum für Logistik und Unternehmensplanung is a consultancy that specialises in industrial logistics. The firm advises companies in the automotive, machine tool, consumer goods and retail sectors on how best to manage their supply chains.

Support network
In 2002 the company, aided by Maximizer’s Austrian business partner acomHOLDING GmbH, installed Maximizer version 7.5 (since upgraded to version 9) in response to the sales team’s requirement for CRM support to manage addresses, business opportunities, sales forecasts and tasks.

Little black book
One of the most basic areas that the package has brought efficiencies to is that of contact management. “We have ten users – managers, sales staff and assistants – and all of them have access to all contact information on every client,” says management assistant Jana Beyer. “They can see if there have been staff changes, address changes etc and can view any notes, documents etc relating to each contact.”

High definition
User defined fields also enable the company to organise contacts logically and efficiently. “We can define contacts by turnover, whether or not they are a real or potential client, whether or not they are a hot lead, and so on, ” says Jana. “This means that when we do mailouts we can pull out the relevant potential recipients perhaps based on contacts that responded to similar offers previously, or which sector they operate within – whatever is relevant to that specific mailout. It means we are always mailing to the most relevant people, plus, because we have such up-to-date information on addresses, new staff etc we are not losing money on mailing people who don’t exist or are no longer there.”

Opportunity knocks
Maximizer’s Opportunities module also enables the company to make more accurate forecasts about the likelihood of converting a lead into a business win. “We have created a tool that can be merged with Maximizer and which helps us analyse the potential worth of a client. We can look at the last project we did with them – what was successful, what was not – and use that information to help tailor our next pitch.”

What’s hot?
Maximizer’s Hot List tool has also helped the sales team and managers prioritise their workload. “Everyone can see when a task is due, who needs to do what, and whether or not a task was completed,” explains Jana. “It’s a super transparent system that enables the whole team to stay on top of their work and stay in the loop.”

Perfect evolution
Jana says that while Maximizer’s attractive price point and user-friendliness are big draws, the system’s constant evolution means the company’s needs are constantly being met. “When we installed the new version of Maximizer it had all the stuff we wanted that wasn’t available in the previous version. It’s like it had evolved with our needs.”

Glitches? What glitches?
As for technical support, while Maximizer business partner acomHOLDING GmbH is always on-hand to deal with any issues, Jana says she can only guess at how valuable that support is. “We have never had problems with the database, so I don’t have to deal with them that much,” she says. “But then I suppose that speaks for itself!”