CRM provides a platform for flexibility and growth

<P>Innovation at the right price for Waikato Milking Systems</P>

As a New Zealand-owned business with 30% of their equipment sold outside of New Zealand, Waikato Milking Systems competes on an international playing field that is price and market conscious to
the extreme. Key to their success is competitive, accurate and timely pricing.

For Waikato Milking Systems, winning contracts is very much driven by the ability to quote and price competitively for the unique characteristics of each individual market, which is in turn influenced by different market mechanisms, currencies and dealer arrangements.

With this in mind, Waikato Milking Systems needed to replace their ageing bespoke price book solution for pricing management. Their platform was increasingly unsupportable, not easy to update and it couldn’t deliver the rapid turnaround in quoting and pricing that was required.

They needed a world class CRM-driven solution capable of integrating with a customised pricing management system. They identifi ed Microsoft Dynamics CRM as an out-ofthe- box solution that could be tailored to their specific pricing requirements through integration with the third party Experlogix quote configurator.

Waikato Milking Systems General Manager, Dean Bell, says: “We felt confi dent that we were investing in a state of the art platform, but not one that we had to fit our business to – rather, one that fit all the drivers of our business.”

The upshot? A mobile sales force can apply price adjustments, fine-tune sales prices, currencies and margins. Tasks that were previously measured in days are now capable of happening automatically, and new products can be released quickly to the market. The downstream effects of greater accuracy, faster turnaround of quotes and speed to market are enormous, proving the grass really can be greener with the right technology in place.