Poised for a surge in growth now that the economy is emerging from recession, the venerable construction services firm R.H. White wanted to make the most of its marketing talents and client network. After nearly 90 years in business, the Auburn, Massachusetts-based company knew that it had substantial potential for growth in its key service offerings in utility management, construction, and engineering technologies, if it could simply harness all its customer knowledge.
But harnessing that customer knowledge efficiently was not an easy task. Like many companies that have grown organically over many years, R.H. White had quite a range of methods for scouting new business, tracking its customers, and proposing new projects. “We had as many systems as we have people in the process,” explains Scott Conover, R.H. White’s business development manager. “Some used a manila folder, some kept [customer information] in their head, some on spreadsheets… with no efficient way of tracking opportunities and leads.”
Having worked previously for an R.H. White client that used a CRM system, Conover realized there was an opportunity to greatly improve his company’s business development processes. But with some skepticism within the company due to a previously unfruitful technology launch, he needed to take a cautious approach. Fortunately, R.H. White was able to arrange an extended trial of Salesforce CRM and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Salesforce won out in this competitive trial for several reasons. First, Conover notes, is the strong visibility of key information. “When I open the system the dashboards allow me to see timely relevant data, such as leads and opportunities, and it is easy to maneuver to different screens.” A key, innovative feature that Conover did not find in competing products is Salesforce’s Chatter, which enables exchanges in real-time among users about specific business opportunities. And finally, Salesforce’s ease of customization appealed to R.H. White.
“We were able to customize our own dashboards to streamline our reporting: what once took several individuals several hours, now is done live, in a click of a few buttons,” Conover says. Management and Sales can now track opportunities according to potential revenue, expecting close date, stage of sale, and other parameters set during the Salesforce implementation, that went live in November 2010.
To create a CRM application so uniquely tailored to its business, R.H. White looked at three competing consulting vendors and brought in Harvest Solutions, a Salesforce Select Consulting Partner based in Waltham, MA. “Harvest was very responsive, had competitive pricing, and addressed all the items we wanted in our implementation.” Equally critical, he notes, Harvest Solutions is nearby and remains involved as R.H. White expands both its user groups and uses of Salesforce.
To tackle the challenge of R.H. White’s myriad of information-storing methods and channels, Harvest Solutions worked with the company to integrate Salesforce with Microsoft Outlook and to migrate customer information and project data that previously had been logged into Excel spreadsheets. “They are definitely more efficient now,” notes Harvest Solutions senior consultant Jay Rivard, who is leading the continuing implementation. “Industry-specific objects have been created to match R.H. White’s business, such as whether a construction project is private or public,” Rivard says.
The result? In just a few months, R.H. White’s business development process has been sharpened. “All leads and opportunities are being tracked in one system now, for all to see,” Conover says contently.
In the coming months, R.H. White is looking to expand its use of Salesforce, by rolling it out to superintendents and project managers in its building division, to better track some of their business development efforts.
Senior management has also been brought into the mix of users, giving it a far more complete and clear picture of R.H. White’s business development pipeline than previously available. This new view also lends a boost to sales and marketing staff who can find fresh information from top-level meetings of R.H. White management with key clients.
R.H. White has recently been looking to salesforce.com's AppExchange to advance the effectiveness of their system. The AppExchange offers an online marketplace of hundreds of cloud computing applications that are pre-integrated with Salesforce. R.H. White installed LinkPoint Vue to improve the connectivity of Salesforce and Outlook. Conover says that the AppExchange gives R.H. White potential for even greater efficiency and transparency. "We are looking at new applications on the AppExchange every day to see how we can more effectively manage our business," Conover says.
