New Technologies Help Growing Equipment Provider Better Share Critical Information

Transcription

1 Microsoft Business Solutions Customer Solution Case Study New Technologies Help Growing Equipment Provider Better Share Critical Information Overview Country/Region: United States Industry: Distribution Partner: Infinity Info Systems Customer Profile Cosa Instrument, based in Yaphank, New York, provides high-technology analyzers and process control systems to the petrochemical, energy, environmental, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, and plastics industries. Business Situation Cosa s previous technology infrastructure consisted of an assortment of systems from disparate vendors. As a result, the company was unable to share critical information and experienced difficulty performing key business tasks. Solution Cosa Instrument deployed and integrated a wealth of Microsoft technologies, including Microsoft Business Solutions CRM, which enables the company to better share information and to boost sales and customer service activities. Our goal was to simplify and standardize the technology on a single integrated stack. For us, Microsoft was the obvious choice. Darryl Nitke, Chief Information Officer, Cosa Instrument Cosa Instrument, a Yaphank, New York based distributor of hightechnology equipment, recently faced a problem common to many successful, growing companies today: Cosa s technology infrastructure had largely been assembled piecemeal to address specific business problems. As a result, the company suffered from a lack of application integration, no control over valuable business data, ineffective collaboration, and a high total cost of ownership. To enable employees to work together and share information and to safeguard its critical data Cosa Instrument, with the help of its Microsoft Certified Business Solutions Partner, Infinity Info Systems, built an entirely new technology infrastructure based on Microsoft technologies. Cosa placed Microsoft Business Solutions CRM an easy-to-use, customizable, and scalable front-office solution at the center of its technology platform. Benefits Better information sharing Streamlined business processes Improved sales tracking Increased control of critical information

2 When amortized over three years, Microsoft CRM is less expensive than Salesforce.com. And with Microsoft CRM, we get better integration and improved response time. Darryl Nitke Chief Information Officer Cosa Instrument Situation Cosa Instrument traces its roots back to a century-old, family-owned Swiss firm renowned worldwide as a trading company for textile and tool-making machinery. In keeping pace with technological changes and global economic realities, a division of Cosa was established in the United States in 1969, with a focus on process control and analytical instrumentation. Today, Cosa Instrument is a leading distributor of high-technology analyzers and process control systems to the petrochemical, energy, environmental, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, and plastics industries. Headquartered in Yaphank, New York with subsidiaries in Houston, Texas, and Norwood, New Jersey, and an affiliated manufacturing company Cosa employs approximately 60 people. As a customer-centric organization, our success is dependent on our ability to connect with our customers, leverage our knowledge and experience, and develop solutions to the technical problems our customers face, explains Darryl Nitke, the company s Chief Information Officer. Salesforce.com customer relationship management (CRM) solutions weren t able to integrate with the company s Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains 5.5 software. We found that the outsourced model works well in theory but doesn t work well in practice, because it makes integration extremely difficult, Nitke says. As a result of running many incompatible technologies, Cosa faced a wealth of issues, including the following: Difficulty executing key business tasks For Cosa, performing even the simplest business tasks required multiple technology steps. Uploading , tasks, and product information to Salesforce.com was a very complex process for us, Nitke says. Basically, we were forced to bend our business process to fit our technology. Inability to share information Cosa s assortment of systems made informationsharing difficult. Creating, managing, and distributing our business and technical documents was a challenge, Nitke says. We had no tools for searching, version control, or approval routing. Everything was stored in our users heads, hard drives, or on unmanaged file shares. Cosa s ability to provide that level of service, however, was constrained by a technology infrastructure that had been assembled piecemeal over the years. As a result, Cosa s systems couldn t keep pace with the company s increasing information demands. We had previously rolled out technology point-solutions to meet specific business needs, Nitke says. The pain that we felt as a company was that none of these technologies really integrated. An example of this incompatibility could be found in the company s front- and back-office systems. Cosa s outsourced and Lack of application integration Cosa s multiple applications were largely incompatible with each other. The system couldn t talk to CRM, and the CRM system didn t talk to accounting, Nitke says. That meant that quote-to-order and order-to-invoice required a lot of data reentry. No control over valuable business data Cosa was particularly apprehensive about having critical business information stored at an off-site location, as was the case with its previous Salesforce.com solution. Our entire customer database and sales

3 history one of our most valuable assets was out of our control, Nitke says. Ineffective collaboration Productivity was hampered because Cosa s employees had no centralized method of sharing calendars, contacts, tasks, or files. In addition, the poor integration between systems caused Cosa to suffer from slow system-response times, a lack of standardized IT policies and procedures, and an inadequate system for backing up vital corporate information. All these system limitations resulted in a high cost of management and maintenance, according to Nitke. The cost of maintenance is very high when you have poor integration. For example, adding a new user took about an hour and required six different user names and passwords, he says. Now, with [Microsoft] Active Directory, it takes about two minutes, and our users have a single sign-on. Solution At Nitke s urging, the company began a capital improvement program for its IT infrastructure in October Our goal was to simplify and standardize the technology on a single integrated stack, he says. For us, Microsoft was the obvious choice. In particular, the tight integration between Microsoft technologies was a primary selling point. The fact that Microsoft applications natively integrate means we are futureproofing our stack, Nitke says. In addition, Cosa cites ease of use and the ubiquity of Microsoft Certified Professionals as contributing factors in choosing Microsoft as its technology provider. As it is for most companies today, cost was a major consideration for Cosa. However, Nitke says, the company found Microsoft Business Solutions CRM and the other Microsoft technologies to be competitively priced. When amortized over three years, Microsoft CRM is less expensive than Salesforce.com, Nitke says. And with Microsoft CRM, we get better integration and improved response time. Cosa worked closely with its Microsoft Certified Business Solutions Partner, New York based Infinity Info Systems, to plan and deploy the Microsoft technologies, using Microsoft CRM as the centerpiece of the company s new technology infrastructure. Cosa Instrument Technology Infrastructure Application Previous System New System CRM Salesforce.com Microsoft CRM 1.2 Back-office Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains 5.5 Microsoft Great Plains 7.5 Database Pervasive 2000 Microsoft SQL ServerTM 2000 Desktop operating system Microsoft Windows 95, 98, and 2000 Microsoft Windows XP Professional Outsourced POP3/SMTP and Microsoft Outlook Express messaging and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 collaboration client Directory services Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Active Directory running on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Online collaboration None Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Security None Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000

4 Distributed by Cosa Instrument, the TOX 100 is an analytical device designed to measure the level of contaminants, such as chlorides or sulfur, in petrochemicals. The instrument can be found in refineries, chemical plants, power plants, and many other locations in the manufacturing and petrochemical industries. Infinity specializes in CRM software and services for midmarket companies. Offering business analysis, project management, development, infrastructure support, and training, Infinity helps companies deploy systems that deepen customer relationships and build corporate profitability. Since 1987, Infinity has implemented more than 2,500 CRM solutions and trained more than 100,000 professionals in CRM usage. To ensure a smooth data migration from Cosa s previous systems to Microsoft CRM, both companies spent the majority of their time planning the process. Planning the migration was 75 percent of our time, testing the migration and minor customization was 20 percent, and the actual installation and conversion was about 5 percent, Nitke says. Infinity used Scribe Insight for Microsoft CRM, a migration tool from Scribe Software, to perform the data migration. All the planning paid off. We wanted no downtime and we didn t have any, Nitke says. We turned off Salesforce.com on a Friday, and we turned on Microsoft CRM the following Monday and I didn t have to go to the office over the weekend. Nitke credits both the Microsoft Business Solutions Partner Program and Infinity Info Systems with making the rapid implementation possible. The experience that Infinity brought was invaluable, he says. We knew what we wanted to accomplish but didn t have the time or resources to learn how to do it. That s why the wealth of experience that partners like Infinity provide is worth every penny. Cosa is currently working to upgrade its backoffice system to Microsoft Great Plains 7.5 on SQL Server Benefits Although Cosa s technology infrastructure is still relatively new, the company is already beginning to realize the many benefits that Microsoft CRM and other Microsoft technologies provide, including the following. Better Sharing of Information Nitke is a big believer in using technology to help employees more easily share their knowledge and experience. To be able to tap into one s institutionalized knowledge and harness it in a way that s useful benefits the firm and helps us better serve our customers, Nitke says. That s something we didn t do very well in the past but something we re going to be able to do much better with these integrated Microsoft technologies. For Cosa, this means that anybody in the company can see what anybody else in the company is doing; things are easy to collaborate on, share, and disseminate; and knowledge is easily accessible to anybody, Nitke says.

5 Streamlined Business Processes Microsoft CRM has helped streamline the process of generating and following up on customer quotes for Scott Allan, a Cosa Inside Sales Engineer. For his part, Allan doesn t miss the cumbersome processes associated with Cosa s previous CRM system. With Salesforce.com, assigning tasks or opportunities to other people was very difficult. In fact, you needed to be an administrator to be able to do that, Allan explains. With Microsoft CRM, I can from right inside the Opportunities section, which makes my job much easier. Improved Sales Tracking Based on our previous technology, there were few tools for effective sales management, Nitke says. Now, the company s 30 sales professionals use Microsoft CRM to manage and track potential sales opportunities and sales in the pipeline. In addition, Cosa s managers are able to more closely scrutinize sales activities and focus resources on the appropriate sales opportunities. With Microsoft CRM, we now know if we re doing good work versus just spinning our wheels, Nitke says. Increased Control of Critical Data Cosa now enjoys peace of mind in knowing that its critical customer data is now stored on-site. It s nice knowing that we own the database, it s centrally located, and we can back it up as part of our corporate backup process, Nitke says.

6 For More Information For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Dynamics Team on More information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be found at: More information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Small Business Edition can be found at: products/dynamics/crm/. For more information about Infinity Info Systems s products and services, call (800) , ext. 274 or visit the Web site at: For more information about Cosa Instrument s products and services, call (201) or visit the Web site at: Microsoft Business Solutions Microsoft Business Solutions offers integrated business applications and services that allow small and midsized organizations and divisions of large enterprises to connect employees, customers, and suppliers for improved efficiency. The financial management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and analytics applications work with Microsoft products such as Microsoft Office and Windows to streamline processes across an entire organization, giving businesses insight to respond rapidly, plan strategically, and execute quickly. Microsoft Business Solutions are delivered through a worldwide network of channel partners that provide specialized services and local support tailored to a company s needs. For more information about Microsoft Business Solutions, go to: Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Active Directory, Great Plains, Outlook, SharePoint, Windows, Windows NT, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation or Great Plains Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Great Plains Software, Inc. is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Document published June 2004 Software and Services Microsoft Office System Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Microsoft Windows Server SystemTM Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Microsoft Windows XP Professional Solutions Microsoft Business Solutions CRM 1.2 Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains 7.5 Technologies Active Directory Partners Infinity Info Systems Scribe Software