MAFELL AG

In the spring of 2002, the MAFELL AG decided to introduce the CRM software: SMARTCRM. Today, 55 employees in field service and back office work with SMARTCRM from the sales department via the purchasing department to the secretariat up to the executive level. MAFELL uses the ERP system abas Business Suite of longtime SMARTCRM cooperation partner abas Software AG. CRM and ERP systems are connected via an interface through which SMARTCRM imports the following data: address and product data, quotations, sales figures, open items, order backlog and special conditions.

The leading system for customer management is abas Business Suite. In order to prevent maintaining the data in the two systems, there is the possibility to switch from SMARTCRM to abas-ERP with a click, for instance, to modify customer master data. In addition, the employees can create a quotation or an order in abas Business Suite directly from the SMARTCRM address file. The data are transferred into SMARTCRM over the interface. Thus, the employees have access to current data in both systems. At the moment, MAFELL manages approximately 13.000 addresses and more than 22.000 products in SMARTCRM.

SMARTCRM prepares the data imported from the abas Business Suite for numerous sales evaluations. The CRM system shows daily comparisons of current sales to sales of the past. The employees can already see in the address file of the customer some evaluations at the customer level. The SMARTCRM Sales module delivers detailed figures. Here, the staff analyzes sales figures from different perspectives, including the sales development over the last 60 months, the product group sales revenue, the annual turnover per sales territory, order backlog per product group as well as the open items per customers. Moreover SMARTCRM offers the possibility to restrict the evaluations through filters. MAFELL uses SMARTCRM also to display the sales figures of customer groups. Therefore, the company has assigned its customers according to exactly defined criteria groups, e.g., all customers that belong to one concern. This way, MAFELL keeps track of the cumulated sales figure of these customers. For more detailed information, the employees change per drill-down function from the concern sales revenue to the individual sales revenue of one customer. In addition, SMARTCRM offers the possibility to evaluate sales figures of selected customers, e.g., all customers who have purchased the product X and the product Y in the current year.

MAFELL uses a sophisticated bonus program to grant its customers attractive conditions for their corporate loyalty. The employees record the respective currently valid bonus system in the address file of the customer or of the customer group. MAFELL grants its customers both a bonus on the obtained total turnover as well as on the increase in sales. In this case, the changes in sales are compared to last year’s and granted a bonus depending on the change (plus or minus). There are certainly also bonus arrangements. At the beginning and at the end of the year, MAFELL informs its customer via SMARTCRM about the achieved bonus level.

Furthermore, MAFELL uses SMARTCRM for communication with its suppliers. Therefore, SMARTCRM imports the suppliers’ data and figures from abas Business Suite. So that the employees are informed about the arrivals of goods and cash flows. Based on these data, they can successfully conclude, for instance, discount negotiations. The Locations and  Languages MAFELL uses SMARTCRM in Germany, France and Spain in the English, German, French and Spanish languages.

Conclusion
The sales evaluations give the MAFELL AG an overview at any time when which product in which number was calculated, which invoices have not been settled yet or how the turnover of the customer developed in the current fiscal year compared to the previous year. So, the company can lead discussions with customers in the favored direction. The ability to record the bonus system used by the company for each customer in SMARTCRM is a huge timesaver. The great advantage of such a system is indeed that the employees do not need to conduct time-consuming discussions about the level of bonus rates and the sales revenue level each year. MAFELL uses this time for discussion on measures that generate new revenues.