Decision Inc. has successfully migrated the on-premise customer relationship management (CRM) environment of a global business in the ICT sector to a cloud-based offering. Not only did this improve its data management capabilities but it also optimised the level of service provided to clients.

The Requirement

The project kicked off in January and was completed mid-February. Its initial focus was on moving the sales, marketing, and support systems to the cloud. Being an international organisation, one of the priorities was to assist employees get aligned to the system and improve their ability to make more informed decisions based on the data at their disposal.

“Even though the South African operations of the business welcomed the move, there was some reluctance internationally as people were comfortable with the status quo. Change management was therefore critical to demonstrate  the benefits of the new environment that would have a similar look and feel to the on-premise one but would include the additional enhancements delivered by the cloud,” says Emil Hickley, Business Manager at Decision Inc.

The Solution

It featured a new user-friendly interface and incorporated enhanced features such as detection of duplicate data. Traditionally, the company struggled with a lack of internal trust in its data given how disparate it was. The new system effectively migrated everything into a centralised environment in the cloud.

“The cloud-based CRM environment would provide users with a better way to track activities across the organisation and help from a priority management perspective to keep data online, up to date, and accessible. One of the biggest advantages of going the cloud route is having its sales team benefit from greater insights into its customers,” says Hickley.

This meant it would be able to identify trends from its sales and understand customer sentiment better. It would also improve the business process flows and provide a visual element to users making data easier to find than before.

New features the client will be using, include tracking goals and doing account planning on an individual basis. Prior to this, all the information was stored on a spreadsheet requiring significant manual reporting to track against targets.

“Even though the migration itself went very smoothly, the challenge was to manage the data that was spread out over more than a decade of doing business. It was critical to maintain the relationships of the data while ensuring its quality. Users had to be trained on where to find information and review that all their required data was migrated successfully. Despite this, the project was completed within six weeks thanks to the lean and agile approach we undertook,” adds Hickley.

One of the key learnings the client experienced was the importance of data management and ensuring that its employees had the right tools in place to avoid duplication. It is about continuously evaluating the data and keeping it lean to enhance the experience of the system while still delivering the functionality required.

“We anticipate that the success of this migration will make corporate buy-in easier in the future. And as more systems become interlinked, the business will be more efficient and deliver greater value far sooner than was possible before,” concludes Hickley.