Smyth Case Study

Smyth Companies Improves Sales and Marketing Efficiency and Effectiveness with Microsoft Dynamics CRM in the Cloud

Since 1877, Smyth Companies (Smyth) has been providing quality package labels and superior service to some of the most recognized consumer products brands in the world. Headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, the company operates six production facilities located in Minnesota, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Colorado. Smyth employs approximately 400 people throughout the U.S. is one of the largest label producers in North America.

Challenge

As the company was experiencing growth, they realized that their existing CRM solution, Sage SalesLogix, was not meeting their needs. SalesLogix lacked the business application integration and syncing capabilities the company needed, creating inefficiencies in getting the real-time data required for the sales and marketing team to effectively manage their customer accounts, and sales and marketing activities. In order to get the performance and scalability they needed from their existing solution, it would have required them to purchase additional add-on modules which would have become cost prohibitive to the company.

"Over time, our existing CRM solution became inflexible, lacked integration to Microsoft Outlook and became very unreliable, causing inefficiencies across our organization. We needed a CRM system that could work with our existing technology platform and could be modified internally quickly and easily," said Bill Orme, Marketing Communications Manager at Smyth Companies.

The company looked for a more flexible and extensible CRM solution that integrated well with other applications, was affordable and easy to maintain, as well as adapted to their existing infrastructure and organizational processes.

Solution

After evaluating other customer relationship management solutions including Salesforce.com, the company chose Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Replacing the existing solution, PowerObjects deployed Microsoft Dynamics CRM to staff members across the organization including sales, marketing, management, and operations.

After evaluating other hosted CRM solutions, the company felt that Microsoft Dynamics CRM and PowerObjects were the best fit. "We chose PowerObjects as our partner because of their local presence, strong knowledge of the product and their ability to understand how CRM could take our business to the next level," he added. "They went the extra-mile in showing how Microsoft Dynamics CRM would work within our business and we were very impressed with their approach."

Key Benefits

One of the greatest benefits the company realized with the new solution was the ability for the sales and marketing team to access a centralized database of information quickly and easily. "We now have a system that integrates very well with the way our sales force tracks customers and opportunities. Before we had to use multiple systems to access information and the data was not unreliable. Now with everything in one place and with the seamless Microsoft Outlook integration, we can more effectively manage our customer and prospect interactions and communication," Orme said.

An important requirement for the company was to have the visibility into sales data to better forecast and manage the sales pipeline with greater intelligence. "Microsoft Dynamics CRM has given us the ability to better manage our sales process and quickly view and analyze sales data giving us the intelligence to better anticipate and respond to the future changes in our business," he added.

From a marketing perspective, Orme has experienced great benefits from the CRM solution. The marketing team now can run targeted mailing and email campaigns with greater confidence. "Knowing we have the right data to work with, we can now easily segment customer and prospect information, pull marketing lists, and execute email and direct mail campaigns quickly. CRM has allowed us to be much more proactive in our marketing approach which is paying off," he added.

Orme believes the company has realized many benefits from Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "With PowerObjects expertise and guidance, we now have an affordable, easy-to-use CRM solution that fits our business and one that will adapt as our needs change. It has already proven to be an invaluable tool across the board and we look forward to tapping into everything it has to offer in the future."