Situation
Inacom Information Systems provides consulting, planning,
design, and implementation of client/server-based technology solutions. Of its
140 employees, 70 are specialized consultants. Based in Madison,
Wisconsin, Inacom markets its services
primarily to Wisconsin businesses and
educational institutions, and sells its services internationally through a
partnership.
In addition to consultative sales, Inacom provides
comprehensive service and support after the sale, as well as ongoing training
and education for its clients. As a growing business solutions and services
provider, Inacom sought an affordable business management solution that would
be easy to implement and maintain, allow the company to consolidate accounting,
sales, and marketing information, and support the company’s changing business
requirements.
Complex Financial and Business Management Needs
More specifically, Inacom was looking for a better way to
manage its financial and sales information. The company used a dated SouthWare
accounting system that did not meet the increasing demands of its accounting
team. Inacom’s breadth of services was stretching its old system beyond what it
could effectively handle:
n
The PC repair business, which includes parts and
inventory, needs to be managed efficiently.
n
The procurement sales division sells hardware
and must track rebate and warranty programs.
n
The training business has a unique pricing
structure and includes subsets of services.
n
The special services business includes five distinct
profit-and-loss areas requiring diligent financial control.
Additionally, Inacom needed to revise its electronic forms
for reports and invoices. The company also wanted to have the ability to add
written notes to reports.
Automation and Data Sharing Requirements
The accounting department had been spending too much time on
basic financial management. Financial data needed laborious verification before
further processing, and frequent system crashes had forced the company to
resort to stopgap fixes to safeguard data. Inacom needed a much more automated
accounting process. The company also needed to ensure that once information was
in its system, it could be used by management and sales teams, as well as by
accounting. Inacom also expected the business management solution to help
improve employee efficiency companywide, and to easily integrate with Inacom’s
existing Microsoft® CRM 1.0 as well as its
Microsoft Office 2003 applications.
Solution
After evaluating the options of either updating its current accounting
software or adopting Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains® software, Inacom chose to adopt Microsoft
Great Plains. Simultaneously, the company upgraded to Microsoft CRM 1.2. Having
established a strong relationship with Microsoft Gold Certified Business
Partner I.B.I.S., which specializes in the sales and service of enterprise
resource planning solutions as well as customer resource management, Inacom
relied on I.B.I.S.’s expertise to help analyze needs and recommend the best
course of action. Inacom’s selection of Microsoft solutions was based on a
desire to achieve a quick implementation and to be able to easily upgrade and
improve its new system.
Although the incorporation of Inacom’s array of business
lines was somewhat challenging, I.B.I.S easily met Inacom’s requested “go live”
date. The Microsoft Great Plains implementation, which included a number of
customizations, was accomplished in only six weeks. At the same time, Inacom
performed its upgrade to Microsoft CRM 1.2, and, with its new accounting
database, synchronized its customer list, which now contains 2,400 accounts and
12,000 contacts.
“We have several business lines and were concerned that the
migration of several sets of data while replacing our old system would be very
difficult. It was an involved implementation,” says Bryan Bechtoldt, Inacom’s
Vice President of Information Management Systems. “Nevertheless, the whole
process went very smoothly.”
Inacom also integrated Microsoft Great Plains with its
already-present Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000
database and business analytics software. The newly integrated
|
“We’re accessing information much more quickly now. I
can tell you at midnight on the last day of the month what my earnings
were for every one of my divisions.”
Bryan Bechtoldt, Vice President of Information
Management Systems, Inacom
|
|
|
information system is being used companywide by management,
sales and consultant teams, and financial managers. The financial management
tools of Microsoft Great Plains, including general ledger, financial analysis,
bank reconciliation, and sales order processing, are being used by 16 Inacom
employees.
Benefits
The integration of Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft CRM
has delivered several key benefits to Inacom. It can understand its business
opportunities better and can help its employees do their jobs more efficiently
and profitably. The Microsoft solutions have enhanced Inacom’s ability to
succeed by making it less challenging and more rewarding to offer its valuable services.
Accelerated, Automated Business Processes
Microsoft Great Plains helped enable Inacom to streamline its
business processes by automating time-consuming manual procedures. Sales orders are processed smoothly and more
accurately. Bank reconciliation is quick and easy. Inacom’s accounting cycles
are now much more efficiently managed, saving the company an estimated 1,000
hours and $25,000. Its year-end close exemplifies the time savings Inacom’s
accounting team experienced. They were pleasantly surprised at how much more
efficiently they could work. “Based on past experience, we thought we’d have to
spend the entire weekend closing. But because the process was so well
automated, we were done in five minutes,” says Jennifer Hanner, Office
Development Specialist at Inacom.
More Efficient Work Environment with Familiar Tools
Inacom’s accounting department also works more efficiently
because it can access and transmit information easily through familiar
Microsoft applications. The accounting team uses Microsoft Office Word 2003 and
Microsoft Office Excel® 2003 spreadsheet
software to import such information as sales commissions and outside reporting
service data into Microsoft Great Plains. The ability to quickly run a query,
then export data to Excel 2003 is particularly useful to the Inacom team on a
daily basis.
Like Microsoft Great Plains, Microsoft CRM has increased the
efficiency of Inacom’s employees. Because Microsoft CRM integrates with
Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003
communication and collaboration client, Word 2003, and Excel, the sales staff
can be more productive. “Our sales team is quite comfortable with the
[Microsoft] CRM interface. They’re using it regularly, and we’re all looking
forward to getting the upgrade. We’ve got some great ideas for more
customization,” says Bechtoldt.
The interoperability of Microsoft CRM with Outlook 2003 helps
Inacom’s sales staff to focus on selling, rather than data entry. Salespeople
can organize their sales strategies at home or on the road, accessing Microsoft
CRM through Outlook 2003 internally or on the Web. “Our salespeople can enter
information just one time. It’s not necessary to create new information in each
application; and wherever they are, they can get up-to-date information out of
[Microsoft] CRM,” says Hanner.
Better Decision Making and Reporting
Inacom’s management team uses SQL Server 2000 Reporting
Services daily to produce and manage more than 20 reports. “Now we can pull
data together from numerous sources and display it in a consolidated,
meaningful way,” says Bechtoldt. “The value we’ve added to the process is
phenomenal.”
With advanced reporting capabilities and readily available,
consolidated information, Inacom managers can respond to market trends quickly
and make better strategic decisions. For example, Bechtoldt can see immediately
at month’s end what orders have and have not been billed and delivered. He no
longer has to wait 20 to 45 days, as he did
|
“Based on past experience, we thought we’d have to
spend the entire weekend closing. But because the process was so well
automated, we were done in five minutes.”
Jennifer Hanner, Office Development Specialist, Inacom
|
|
|
in the past. “We’re accessing information much more quickly
now. I can tell you at midnight on the last day of the month what my earnings
were for every one of my divisions,” says Bechtoldt.
Increases Sales Opportunities and Better Team
Collaboration
The integration of Microsoft Great Plains with Microsoft CRM
also helps provide the opportunity for increased sales. Easy access to the
customer database through Microsoft CRM and to sales and delivery information
through Microsoft Great Plains helps enable Inacom’s sales team to target its
marketing efforts more effectively. The integration provides more sales
opportunities and offers more customer insight with the possibility of more
profitable sales. Turnout at Inacom sponsored seminars has increased 50% as a
result of targeted market made possible by the new system. “[Microsoft] CRM and
[Microsoft] Great Plains together give us a
way for our sales team to collaborate and share account information. It’s very
exciting what we can do now. Our salespeople can review each other’s notes to
see what products are or aren’t selling. It provides a real team environment
for sales,” says Bechtoldt.
Strong Foundation for Business Growth
“We’re delighted with the capabilities the integration of
Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft CRM has delivered so far,” says Bechtoldt.
“We’re really beginning to understand our business better and to react more
quickly to market conditions.”
Bechtoldt looks forward to even better opportunity when
Inacom’s scheduled upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 takes place. Microsoft
CRM 3.0 will make it even easier for Inacom to customize the solution and help
make its sales team even more effective. Through increased customization,
Inacom can allow salespeople several ways to access account information. By
using the marketing automation capabilities in Microsoft CRM 3.0, sales staff
will be able to send and track bulk mail-merged e-mail messages, letters, and
faxes. Microsoft CRM 3.0 also automatically tracks responses to such
communications. “The ability to track who’s been contacted within the past 60
days, for instance, is critical. We don’t want any overexposure,” says Bechtoldt.
Inacom is taking advantage of Microsoft’s commitment to
innovation by taking a step-by-step approach to improving its accounting
processes. Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft CRM 1.2 allow Inacom to plan
improvements and add them when they are affordable and appropriate. Among the
company’s other plans are better marketing and sales campaign and expense
tracking by using the Project Management module, migrating customer data from
proprietary systems, and developing forms so that salespeople can further
organize information. “[Microsoft] CRM is a very rich environment for us. And
because we know it works well with [Microsoft] Great
Plains, integrates easily with third-party applications, and is so
well supported, we’re confident both systems will support our growing business
in the years to come,” says Bechtoldt.
