Ndevr Implement Oracle CRM for Silliker Australia (now Merieux NutriSciences Corporation)
Silliker Australia is Australia’s leading analytical laboratory and technical consultancy dedicated to food safety and quality.
Silliker provides research, consulting, testing, auditing and training services to assure product quality, safety and nutrition from development to delivery.
As well as servicing the food and beverage industry, Silliker also services the therapeutic goods and medical devices, antimicrobial and household products, cosmetic, water and environmental industries.
In 2000, Silliker Australia joined the Silliker Group Corporation in the USA which is now part of world renowned bio-industrial group, Merieux NutriSciences Corporation, based in France.
Finding A Globally Capable Enterprise CRM
In 2009 it was decided that the Merieux NutriSciences Corporation needed to implement a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software package that would operate across the entire corporation.
Linda Pieretti, Sales and Marketing Manager for Silliker Australia said, “We’re a global company, with large global accounts, but lacking the tools to manage these accounts effectively across companies and continents. There was a big push from the executive management team, globally and locally, to have more transparency into the management of customers and the sales function of the business.”
As a relatively small entity of the large corporation, it was decided that Silliker Australia would become the pilot site for the CRM deployment and once successful the package would be rolled out on a global scale across all three groups within the corporation.
“At the time our management of clients and prospects was a very manual process and completely disparate. We had a multitude of spreadsheets, storing different information and there was a lot of duplication. It was close to impossible for the sales and marketing team to find anything let alone track or measure performance. This meant wasted time and many lost opportunities,” said Pieretti.
Selecting Oracle CRM & Implementing With Oracle Partner Ndevr
When looking for a CRM solution Silliker had a number of key requirements.
- It needed to be a system that could be easily integrated with the existing enterprise resource planning system (Oracle JD Edwards) and Silliker’s Laboratory Information Management system (LIM).
- The system needed to be ‘out of the box’ and externally hosted, so as not to rely on internal resources to deliver changes and upgrades to the system.
- As the software was to be rolled out globally, the design requirements from the US had to be front of mind and it needed to be easily scalable.
From a sales and marketing perspective the key objective for the deployment was that it needed to allow for significant improvement to the management of customers, leads, opportunities and marketing campaigns – in Australia and eventually around the world.
Oracle CRM on Demand fit the bill perfectly and Oracle certified partner, Ndevr was chosen as the implementation partner for the project. Pieretti commented, “We needed a partner that not only had an in-depth knowledge of the Oracle CRM on Demand solution, but our two existing solutions as well to fulfil our vision of a completely unified management and customer base system. Ndevr has the proven expertise we were after.”
After a swift implementation, Oracle CRM on Demand has been operational within the Silliker Australia sales and marketing departments since September 2010. “Once the system was deployed Ndevr conducted training sessions over a three day period on the basics of the system, which has really helped with the strong uptake by the corporate sales team. To really extend the value of the system we’ve also been working with Ndevr to develop additional training tools on how to use each module so the team can essentially train themselves,” said Pieretti.
The Benefits of Oracle CRM On Demand
Since implementing Oracle CRM on Demand, Silliker has experienced significant improvements in workflow within the company. Pieretti explained, “The seamless integration of CRM with the existing systems means Silliker can take a holistic approach when it comes to managing information across the company. We now have a 360 degree view of customers and the ways in which they interact with the different touch points of the business, this gives us better insight into customer needs and opportunities, and ensures our customer service is of the highest
quality.”
Another major benefit of the Oracle CRM system is the ability for Silliker to track and measure the activity of the sales team, quickly and easily providing the management team with the sales reports they require on a monthly basis, a process that would previously have taken weeks to compile.
Oracle CRM On Demand Aligns Silliker’s Sales and Marketing Teams
Now that the sales and marketing team are working with the new CRM system, the next step in Australia will be to incorporate the finance and quality control teams onto the system to ensure it is fully functioning across all parts of the business. “Australia was the first stop and as we’ve been so successful next up the US roll out will begin on our key accounts allowing us to start sharing our IP globally,” concluded Pieretti.
From a marketing perspective, Sillker are now able to manage campaigns from start to end, capturing and assigning leads and opportunities as well as analysing results and generating reports to measure effectiveness.
“Previously our investment in marketing events such as trade shows and conferences were practically wasted because we didn’t have a way to track and follow up on leads and opportunities. Now, we can be so much more disciplined and maximise the big investment that goes into these events,” said Pieretti.
“Ndevr had the skills and expertise to execute a project tailored specifically to the needs of Silliker on a local level but also keeping the global scale of the project front of mind. They have been very easy to work with and always available, making them a very reliable partner. As we don’t have the internal expertise or resources to execute anything like this ourselves, I consider these attributes absolutely critical,” said Pieretti.
