The ZIMMER Group comes back to SMARTCRM

The ZIMMER Group:

• Automation engineering

SMARTCRM and ZIMMER:

• CRM replacement
• 250 licenses
• Used in sales, marketing and service departments
• Modules: Basis, Sales, Targets, Planning, Projects, GeoMap, Machines, Ticket, Exchange.Sync, Offline, App, ERP, DMS
• Interface to proALPHA ERP and proALPHA DMS

Requirements and project goals:

• Representation of several clients
• Standard interface to proALPHA
• Extensive BI evaluations in different currencies
• Foreign-language surface

We are looking forward to welcoming the ZIMMER Group as a customer for the second time. A change of the ERP system also brought the replacement of SMARTCRM several years ago. Now the company has decided to reintroduce our CRM solution.

Under the umbrella brand ZIMMER Group, ZIMMER GmbH, ZIMMER GmbH Kunststofftechnik as well as ZIMMER GmbH Dämpfungssysteme manufacture components in the fields of automation, damping, linear, process, tooling and machine technology with about 1000 employees.

From its headquarters in Rheinau, Germany, the ZIMMER Group works together with numerous international sales subsidiaries. In SMARTCRM, they are represented by 12 clients so that in a near future, employees from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, England, Italy, Spain, Slovakia, Poland, the USA, China as well as India will work with a unique SMARTCRM installation, in which all information is centrally bundled. Thanks to the multi-client capability, employees can access only the data they do need. If required, a cross-client view of the CRM information is also possible. The CRM interface will be available in German, English and French and additionally, the SMARTCRM.App in Chinese.

ZIMMER works with the ERP and the DMS systems of proALPHA. Both systems are connected to SMARTCRM over interfaces. Our CRM system will import for instance incoming orders, order back logs and invoice items as well as open items from proALPHA ERP in a near future. They will be analyzed by our CRM solution at different levels equivalent to a BI system and, among others, provided in different currencies. For this purpose, SMARTCRM applies the exchange rates from the ERP system. If values in different currencies are called up cumulatively in an evaluation, an automatic conversion takes place. This way, SMARTCRM automates the previous manual analysis of the figures in Microsoft Excel and enables the company to minimize time and effort.

Using the interface to proALPHA DMS, documents can be searched and retrieved directly out of SMARTCRM in the Document Management System. In addition, files can be transferred to proALPHA at the press of a button.

Furthermore, SMARTCRM will enable the sales staff to easily track quotations. For each project, ZIMMER will create a corresponding project file in SMARTCRM and link it to the respective prospective customer or customer file. SMARTCRM will import the quotations over the ERP interface and will automatically store them in the corresponding CRM file. In the future, tasks with reminders and deadlines will support the employee in tracking. The full activity history will complete the project panoramic view.

In the near future, SMARTCRM will provide the company an equally helpful overview in the machine file. Therein the employees will store the detail information of the produced equipment, for instance foundry machines, and will link it to the respective buyers.

The field service staff will also be best connected when out of the office. This will be enabled both through the offline access per notebook as well as over the SMARTCRM.App on smartphones and tablets. Hereby, sales employees can consult the previously documented agreements while visiting a customer or look at an open quotation. Service employees can directly access the machine data during a maintenance appointment.

The marketing employee will be supported by SMARTCRM in narrowing down the appropriate target group using extensive selection options. In addition, ZIMMER is planning the connection to the e-mail marketing tool Inxmail Professional to SMARTCRM in order to send privacy compliant personal mailings and newsletters.