Avista Case Study

Founded in 2006, Avista Communications (Avista) is a leading provider of business communications solutions. Headquartered in Minneapolis, the company provides telecommunication consulting services including the design, implementation and management of communications systems to businesses across the U.S.

Situation

For several years, Avista was using Excel spreadsheets and manual processes to manage customer and project data and lacked a centralized CRM solution to record customer and prospect interactions, manage sales forecasting and reporting, and track project interactions. They also lacked a way to efficiently manage inventory of their services as well as track commissions for providers that they work with.

The company needed a flexible CRM/xRM solution and development platform that would:

• Consolidate all of their customer, prospect and vendor data into one system
• Help track and manage projects and costs as well as handle payroll reporting
• Manage inventory and assets for services that they provide for customers
• Track and manage complex commission reporting.

As the company continued to grow and expand their business, they determined that it was time to invest in a CRM system and ultimately selected hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

“We had some unique business requirements and we choose Microsoft Dynamics CRM because of its reliability and strong platform integration, customization and reporting capabilities. That combined with PowerObjects’ strong development expertise and in-depth knowledge of CRM, is just what we needed,” said Jeff Taverna, Managing Partner at Avista Communications. 

Solution

After searching for a CRM solution that would fit their business needs, Avista felt that Microsoft Dynamics CRM was the answer and knew PowerObjects could do the job. "Having worked with PowerObjects previously, we were very comfortable with their team and confident in their overall CRM and custom development capabilities. They did a great job of understanding our requirements and how CRM would fit our overall business needs,” said Taverna.

Using xRM as a framework, PowerObjects implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Avista across the entire organization including sales, marketing, operations and management.

Key Benefits

One of the greatest benefits the company realized with the new solution was the ability for the sales and marketing teams to access a centralized database of information quickly and easily. “With one centralized and consolidated database of customer, prospects and vendor information, we now have the ability to manage the entire sales process more effectively,” he added. In addition, once a sale closes, management can now track an entire project from start to finish. “The project and cost management workflow and reporting that PowerObjects developed for us in CRM gives us the ability to monitor staff resources, view project status and even manage payroll reporting at any given time, which has eliminated hours of manual work and enhanced overall productivity.“

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has also greatly enhanced the inventory and asset management services Avista provides to its customers.  “With various custom fields and reporting in CRM, we can now deliver very detailed financial reports to our customers about their telecommunication services. This new capability allows us to provide very uniform deliverables to our customers, giving us a competitive edge in the market,” said Taverna.

Finally, the company lacked an effective and accurate way to calculate and manage complex commissions for its providers. PowerObjects will soon be developing a new compensation reporting solution utilizing CRM to more efficiently track and calculate commissions for its providers. “With the new compensation system, we’ll be able to generate compensation reporting quickly and easily for our providers as well as use it to better forecast future revenue,” he added.

Taverna believes the company has realized substantial benefits thanks to PowerObjects’ guidance and expertise. “PowerObjects is one of the best partners I’ve worked with. They took the time to understand our requirements and delivered in a very big way. With their help, not only have we gained the organizational insight and increased productivity we needed but we’ve transformed our organization into an industry leader,” he said. 

About PowerObjects

Established in 1993, PowerObjects is one of a handful of organizations recognized as a leader in delivering Microsoft Dynamics CRM/xRM solutions to customers. As a Microsoft Partner Gold Certified in the CRM competency, 2011 Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle recipient, and Microsoft President’s Club member (2009-2011), PowerObjects has an impressive and rapidly growing list of customers benefiting from Microsoft CRM/xRM. PowerObjects fully embraces the power of customer choice and offers hosted, on-premise and online CRM deployment options. Headquartered in Minneapolis with offices in Dallas, PowerObjects provides CRM solutions to businesses and non-profit organizations in multiple industries including healthcare, life sciences, insurance, financial services, publishing, distribution, manufacturing and professional services. For more information, visit www.powerobjects.com or call 612-339-3355.