Adams Ricardo swears by CRM addition

£1m food industry blowers manufacturer Adams Ricardo reckons adding CRM (customer relationship management) functionality to its infor:swan (now acquired by Agilisys) ERP system is making a real contribution to business growth, both in terms of customer service and maximising order potential. Managing director Chris Davis says: “It brings order out of chaos. It means we can achieve more with the same number of people. We can get to information more quickly, and the system prompts whoever is relevant for action. “For example, our time from quote to order can be six or nine months, but the system doesn’t let us lose contact – even if a salesman leaves. ERP doesn’t do that for us; our CRM system does.” What does he mean by CRM? “We mean a centralised system that holds our customers’, prospects’ and suspects’ contact details and all our interactions with them… We needed a system to track all those details and transactions that aren’t captured in the sales system.” And that had to include OEMs, system integrators and potentially the end users. “There was no one pool of data before – it was either on paper, in people’s heads, or on a separate Access system we’d created.” Now, salesmen have remote access to that pool of information, but, across the company, so do marketing and technical services. The firm can identify users, for example, not yet on contract, as well as associated issues and transactions. As for advice on making it work, Davis is adamant: “You need make sure that individuals in the company know why you’re implementing CRM, and how they’re supposed to use it – and then police it. That’s crucial, otherwise it won’t work, because the system has to be kept up to date and complete.”