Established to supply local industry with laboratory equipment and chemicals, Scientific & Chemical Supplies Ltd now employs over one hundred employees across three main divisions.
As the company approaches its fiftieth anniversary, it has become the UK’s leading science equipment supplier to the education market, offering over 8,000 products. It is also a major supplier to laboratories in a wide range of industries and sectors, from aerospace to automotive, from pharmaceuticals to food manufacturing. Its International division supplies customers in some sixty countries around the world, and offers particular expertise in delivering large projects and tenders.
Throughout its history, the West Midlands based company has retained its family values and a strong focus on customer service. In the late 1990s, it opened branches in Aberdeen and Cork, and in 2002 acquired a further branch in Paisley to provide local personal service on a regional basis.
The challenge
Speaking from Scientific & Chemical Supplies’ head office, Operations Director Philip Palser explains why the company began to consider implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) solution:
“Our product range grew rapidly in both the education and laboratory supplies markets as we won exclusive distribution agreements from suppliers and develop innovative products for customers. Our International division had likewise seen expansion and we’d been successful in winning large tenders. All good news in business terms, of course, but it meant we had a lot to manage.”
There was a key factor in the search for a CRM solution: “To realise the benefits of our investment in CRM, we wanted a system which would integrate fully with our existing Sage Line 500 solution. This has proved a real work-horse since we first installed it some years ago.”
Scientific & Chemical Supplies had been impressed by Sage’s ability to provide well tested products, which were easy to implement and offered room for growth. With Sage Business Partner CPiO, managers reviewed what Sage could offer in CRM.
Scientific & Chemical Supplies already had several users of Sage’s ACT! Contact Manager, but felt that the scale and scope of what it had planned would be beyond the reach of the product. The company chose Sage CRM as a solution which would provide extensive support for both the remote sales force and office-based customer services staff, while integrating tightly with Sage Line 500.
With the decision made, a 45-user Sage CRM MME (Mid Market Edition) Advanced Server was implemented within weeks.
The benefits
Today, the company’s Sage CRM solution is used in customer service, by sales reps, in the local branches, and in functions such as credit control and purchasing. Sage CRM is a very user-friendly product and Scientific & Chemical Supplies staff took to it very quickly. Five more users soon joined theoriginal group.
By linking users in different functions to a single system, Sage CRM allows all transactions and communication history to be pooled into a single screen, providing a shared and complete view of the customer.
If a customer requests a quotation or has a query about an order they can contact any of four offices, and the customer services co-ordinator and territory manager can see the information. Similarly, literature requests or key customer information can be recorded and accessed quickly.
Philip confirms that Sage CRM has helped different parts of the business to work far more closely together, “Sales staff out in the field and the customer service teams back in the office can share key information on customers, whether a request, quotation, order or complaint. Meanwhile, the integration with Sage Line 500 provides end-to-end visibility of customer orders and order information to reps for the first time, without them needing training on Sage Line 500.
“Projects have grown rapidly in recent years as customers feel confident about our abilities as a major supplier and now reps can check order information and delivery dates. They can also check on an important order that they are expecting without having to phone the offices.”
Scientific & Chemical Supplies looked to Sage CRM to help it manage growth. Now, dashboards provide critical sales and key performance indicator information to all who need it. So, for example, with Sage CRM, territory managers or other key staff can view their territory or division to see at a glance how it is performing against budget, or to view their latest orders, on a day to day basis or as often as they wish.
Reviewing the overall progress made, Philip says, “Our Sage solution is at the heart of our business and helping us to focus on our customers and to process their orders more efficiently. It also supports us on the other side of the equation, in following up and securing prompt payment. Our experienceof Sage CRM has reinforced our view that
Sage products expand as we grow, and we can add specific modules, for e-commerce, faxing and emailing, as required.”
A mobile solution is currently in the early stages of deployment, providing CRM information on a PDA to the sales team while with their customers, or to help them locate other customers to visit in that particular postcode, saving valuable time. With the integration with Microsoft Outlook, they can check vital emails on the move, too.
The Sage CRM solution is accessible over the web, as well as via a corporate terminal server to give teams convenient, low-cost, real-time 24/7 access from wherever there is an Internet connection.
The future
In its choice of Sage CRM, Scientific & Chemical Supplies always had an eye to
the future. “When you are entrusting your business to a software provider, it’s critical to choose one that is future-proof and this is what we have achieved in implementing Sage CRM,” says Philip.
“We needed a clear development path and our Business Partner CPiO’s professional approach encourages us to capitalise on the advances offered by emerging technologies such as e-commerce and mobile access within our business.”
Surveying how far the company has come in its deployment of CRM, he concludes, “We are fortunate in having a robust system at the heart of our business, with the flexibility to evolve in line with our continued growth.”
