ANT GmbH Antriebstechnik

Since 2011, ANT GmbH has been using SMARTCRM company-wide. Indeed, the CRM system supports the employees in field and office sales, controlling, service, marketing as well as purchasing in their daily work processes.

Searching for a CRM solution with abas connection

Dieter Kaidel, IT specialist and assistant to the management at ANT GmbH, recalls the CRM selection process: “Unfortunately, we came to realize that many providers could not keep the promise of a problem-free connection to abas ERP. However, the SMARTCRM presentation was just as convincing as the uncomplicated setup of the interface between CRM and ERP. “ This is because the interface from SMARTCRM to abas could be set with little effort thanks to the long-term cooperation partnership with abas Software AG and the resulting large ERP expertise. Since it already fulfilled almost all of ANT’s requirements as standard, individual adaptation requests could be implemented quickly afterwards. “The installation worked great back then and the interface has been running perfectly ever since.” praises Dieter Kaidel. This way, SMARTCRM imports quotations, framework orders, turnover, incoming orders, order backlog and contribution margin positions as well as open items from abas ERP. For SRM processes, suppliers, purchase orders, purchase order stock and open invoices are transferred to the CRM system. In the opposite direction, SMARTCRM opens customers and suppliers in the ERP solution using the bidirectional interface.

SMARTCRM prepares imported figures at different levels from the company overview to the individual customer and product. Current figures are compared with the target figures and the previous year’s figures in a clear manner. “We intensively use the analyses in the CRM system. From complete company statistics to customer hit lists and an overview of orders – SMARTCRM displays this at the press of a button. “ explains Dieter Kaidel. ANT can thus identify trends and developments at an early stage and react accordingly. The analyses can be transferred to Microsoft Excel just as easily. For this purpose, ANT has stored Excel templates corresponding to their CI in SMARTCRM. “With the CRM solution and its ease of use, we were able to significantly reduce the time required for analyzing and preparing our figures.”

Effective sales support

Target agreements are also stored in the CRM system at ANT. This means that sales staff can see the current status of their target achievement at a glance at any time and thus know where they can optimize their sales work if necessary. The targets are additionally displayed as clear diagrams on the SMART Board, the start screen of the CRM solution. Together with many other overviews individually adapted to the company’s requirements – such as missing visit reports, appointments or company statistics – they provide the foundation for successful work in day-to-day business right at the start of SMARTCRM.

ANT also makes intensive use of the SMARTCRM.Organizer, with which the sales department can always keep track of appointments and tasks as well as resource management.

SMARTCRM also supports sales representatives in tour planning. The addresses assigned to a sales territory are conveniently transferred to Bing Maps, where they are visualized and narrowed down to a smaller region. These are then transferred back to the CRM system and automatically marked as a tour. After the appointment has been made by phone with the corresponding customers, the appointments and planned activities can thus be conveniently created in SMARTCRM. An additional option for finding addresses is the area search in SMARTCRM, which, for instance, displays all prospective customers next to a known address within a given radius. In the future, ANT will also benefit from the corridor search allowing other addresses along the planned route to appear in Bing Maps. Employees can keep track of upcoming and past tours with a glance at their SMART Board.

Create trade fair invitation in the blink of an eye

ANT is an exhibitor at trade fairs. Before a fair, SMARTCRM facilitates the creation of invitations that the company sends out by mail. The extensive selection options as well as the assignment of features to addresses and contacts enable an easy selection of the appropriate target group but also data protection compliant. The personalized mailing letters are created directly in the CRM system. Data such as address and salutation are filled in automatically, which implies significant time saving for ANT.

Indispensable in service

The service employees also work with SMARTCRM. This is because ANT uses it to document incoming complaints in detail, with information and pictures, from the notification to the conclusion. Complete tracking of all complaints is thus guaranteed at all times. Different reports such as 5D or 8D reports are generated just as conveniently in the CRM solution.

SRM information directly in the CRM system

The purchasing department also relies on SMARTCRM for supplier management. Thus, the employees manage their supplier addresses in the CRM solution and keep track of purchase orders and open invoices at all times. This is because the corresponding figures are directly transferred and prepared by SMARTCRM from abas ERP.

ANT is already planning the expansion of the SMARTCRM installation, including the integration to the document management system HABEL in use at ANT via a standard interface. This will allow the company to transfer documents to HABEL from SMARTCRM as well as to call the DMS directly from the CRM system via a button.