Our abas standard interface and ERP expertise impressed

SMW-AUTOBLOK GmbH:

• Clamping technology

SMARTCRM at SMW-AUTOBLOK:

• CRM replacement
• 75 licenses
• Interface to abas ERP
• Use in sales and marketing departments

Requirements and project goals:

• Test of the CRM system within a pilot phase
• Standard connection to the ERP solution abas
• Mapping of corporate structures
• Convenient quotation tracking
• Optimal integration of the field force

We are pleased to welcome SMW-AUTOBLOK, a new abas customer. The SMW-AUTOBLOK corporation is active worldwide with around 650 employees in the field of clamping technology.

SMARTCRM replaces the previously used CRM system at SMW-AUTOBLOK. One reason for the replacement is the required connection of abas ERP to the CRM solution, which could not be implemented with the current system. As a long-time cooperation partner of abas Software, however, we offer a standard interface to abas. Thanks to our extensive ERP experience, we can set this up quickly and easily, but also implement the individual requirements of our customer beyond standard.

The CRM decision was preceded by a pilot installation including data transfer. This allowed SMW-AUTOBLOK to test SMARTCRM functionalities directly using its own data and to get convinced of the advantages before the purchase. In addition, we scored with high user satisfaction, confirmed to SMW-AUTOBLOK within several reference discussions.

Another important requirement of the company is the mapping of corporate structures. In the future, SMW-AUTOBLK will be able to map all hierarchies and relationships of its prospects and customers as well as their contacts in SMARTCRM. For instance, turnovers can be conveniently evaluated for each companies as well as for entire groups or associations.

Sales items are imported by SMARTCRM via the interface from abas ERP – as well as incoming order items, open items, warehouse stock, item (groups), customers and quotations. The current stock level of an item is displayed to sales employees directly in the respective CRM file. In addition, our CRM solution evaluates the figures at different levels and makes the various analyses available at the push of a button, for example, per customer or article. Whereas evaluations were previously created in Microsoft Excel as well as abas ERP, they are now available centrally in the CRM system. Thus, the field staff now also has direct access to the important analyses, can recognize sales developments and can compare current figures with those of the previous year. This is because all CRM information is available to them on the road, both offline on their notebooks and via online access via the SMARTCRM.App.

In this way, SMARTCRM supports sales staff in preparing for a visit, during a customer visit, and afterwards during follow-up. In the future, the visit reports will also be recorded directly in the CRM solution and, together with the automatically imported e-mails and the documentation of telephone calls, complete the activity history in the customer file.

SWM-AUTOBLOK will also track the quotations using SMARTCRM. Thus, the quotations are imported from abas ERP and automatically archived in the corresponding customer file. Optimal traceability is ensured by tasks with due dates and reminders as well as overviews of open quotations and the forecast.

SMARTCRM also helps sales representatives plan their routes. Before a customer visit, they can use an area search in the CRM system to see which customers or prospects are within a certain radius of the address to be approached. These can be conveniently visualized on a map in Bing Maps at the click of a mouse and the optimal route planned. SMARTCRM shows the sales force whether there are other interesting addresses along this route via the corridor search.

In a second step, SMW-AUTOBLOK plans to connect SMARTCRM to a DMS. Since we offer standard interfaces to various document management systems, this connection will also be easy to implement.