in Reading, PA, employs its expertise in custom thermoforming to design and manufacture rigid plastic packaging for clients in a variety of markets. The company's customers include leading, well-known enterprises in the food, consumer products, and medical industries.
Because many of Tray-Pak's products are custom-designed and manufactured to customer specifications and requirements, the firm's marketing, sales, and customer-care processes and activities are complex. This complex process involves extensive interaction with customers by employees from many different functions, not just the sales force. Consequently, Tray-Pak requires a robust CRM solution that allows employees from all parts of the company to securely capture, track, and share a wide variety of information required to successfully market, sell, and support products to specific customers.
An evaluation of the company's existing sales-support system revealed numerous limitations that impeded sales-force productivity, made it difficult for managers to efficiently monitor the status of sales activities, and hampered the free, cross-functional flow of information so critical to Tray-Pak's sales process. The incumbent system was essentially a stand-alone address book that could also archive communications such as e-mail messages. The system was not configurable and customizable for individual users, and it did not allow for specific, selective tracking of meaningful information. Instead, it became a repository for large amounts of unstructured and unorganized data that had limited usefulness. And it did not accommodate important sales processes and activities such as goal setting.
Tray-Pak recognized that they needed a robust CRM system that could help them capture and track important, meaningful, up-to-date sales information. This meant that the new system must be customizable, with individual dashboards for sales reps that include information about their territories, open cases, pipelines, and activities. Likewise, manager dashboards would provide a customized, tailored overview of all sales activities across the company. A related requirement was daily updating of information, with the ability to run sales funnel information in real-time. And the system needed to support all aspects of the sales process, including goal setting.
Configurable, role-based security was deemed crucial in allowing sales information to be shared effectively across all functions of the company. Such security was viewed as critical in opening the doors for internal communication to better address customer needs. The system had to be user-friendly and needed to work seamlessly with Microsoft products, including integration with Outlook and the ability to import/export Excel data.
Tray-Pak chose as their CRM solution. Dynamics CRM is a cloud-based system that addresses all of the company's current needs and also has the flexibility and capability to accommodate future growth, expanded use, and eventual integration with their ERP system. Additionally, Tray-Pak chose as their integration and implementation partner. Tray-Pak cited Intellitec's ability to quickly understand their business and deep experience with Microsoft Dynamics CRM as key factors in their decision. They also liked that Intellitec offers a variety of subject matter-related user groups and conferences in which they can participate.
Tray-Pak reported that the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM went smoothly, with no hitches or major surprises. They were , which included a former Microsoft employee with extensive experience developing Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Employing phone calls and face-to-face engagement, Intellitec's project team was very engaged in the project and process, and was adept at determining which parts of the implementation Tray-Pak was able to do on their own, thereby reducing consulting expenses. In Tray-Pak's words, Intellitec "did what we needed, and helped us do what we can do ourselves."
Intellitec also provided extensive, customized training to Tray-Pak personnel, a service that was especially valuable to Tray-Pak. According to one manager, “What we appreciated the most was that Intellitec was able to gauge our level of expertise and adjust accordingly. They so that we could get the most out of it, and kept our costs down.” Tray-Pak found the training to be very good, and they are now comfortable managing the application themselves. They report that very little post-implementation consulting has been required to keep the system running smoothly.
The initial Tray-Pak rollout of Microsoft Dynamics CRM went live in July 2012 and included goal-setting, tracking, personalized dashboards, and reporting functionality. The personalized dashboards are used daily by sales, customer service, marketing, and executive management personnel. The system is used primarily for tracking and reporting sales-related activities and addressing customers needs. They report that the ability to make competitive intelligence information available to everyone has been a welcome benefit as well.
Tray-Pak envisions further enhancements to the system to be implemented in a Phase 2 rollout. Possibilities include integration with their ERP system, consolidating information from a separate engineering design database into Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and developing more complex programs and reports. They believe that taking a "walk before you run" approach to system implementation was an important factor in their success and recommend that other companies considering such a move do the same.
Tray-Pak reports that, since their new CRM system went live, managers now "really know about activities in all the territories, without having to call people." Sales information is clear, and everyone sees the same information. They also report that they are able to respond more quickly to customer inquiries. In their words, having sales information integrated across the company "makes us a more valuable business partner to our customers."
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