SoloCup Case Study

Based on a 13 acre site in Huntingdon, Solo Cup Europe manufactures cups, containers and packaging for the food service industry from paper, plastic and foam. Clare Kelly is the company’s IT Manager responsible for SalesLogix which was installed at the end of 2007.

Company name: SoloCup Europe
Company site: http://www.solocupeurope.co.uk/
Product: Sage SalesLogix
Date: 10/08/09
Region: Cambridgeshire
No Of Seats: 30

Situation:

“Here at Solo Cup Europe we’re continually striving to enhance the service we deliver to our customers,” explains Clare. “Back in 2007 we ran a continuous improvement exercise and became acutely aware that things weren’t quite as efficient as they should be.

“For example we held sales data on a different system to every other data. In fact, our receptionist held a separate Christmas card list, our salesmen all had their own individual contact lists, Customer Services had a different set of contacts and Accounts had another. Whenever anyone wanted information on a customer, they had to trawl through everything. It was a nightmare!”

Clare and her team looked at three different CRM solutions including one from Microsoft. “But we finally settled on SalesLogix because of the marketing element and also because of the sheer flexibility which meant we could customise it to our needs. With the other solutions you could change a couple of the input boxes, like anglicising the American terminology for instance, but that’s about as far as they went. SalesLogix did much more, so that’s what we set our sights on.”

Solution:

The company brought in DMC for a demo. Clare explains: “A hardware support salesman I deal with recommended DMC. So David Curtis from DMC came in and walked us through the system.” But getting the go‐ahead from management wasn’t as straightforward as Clare would have liked.

The installation went smoothly as Clare explains: “DMC customised SalesLogix quite a bit for us before it went live so it did exactly what we wanted it to do. Then one of their men came in, installed it and went through everything in detail.”

Carl from DMC trained the salesmen “which was a bit of a challenge!” laughs Clare. “Simply because our guys weren’t used to having to document everything they do. Clare gives an example. “Our salesmen create sales pipelines. Before, this took literally hours to do in Excel. With SalesLogix they can just input data at a press of a button. The salesmen are seeing how this makes life much easier and Clare reports that the salesmen enthusiastically state, ‘This is excellent. And while I’m talking to you, please can I have some more training?’.”

Benefits:

Clare explains that DMC are always available whenever anyone needs any assistance. “We just call them and they walk us through things,” she points out. “I have a good relationship with Carl from DMC who comes in and trains us. Then there are Nick and Craig who I can phone whenever we want to know how to do something. They’re always courteous and prompt. I’ve never had to chase things up or complain. We’re very, very pleased.”

DMC will also be involved in Solo Cup Europe’s future plans. Says Clare: “We’re just getting some costs together for an organisation chart to enhance the service we offer to our larger customers. Also, we might be investing in a new ERP system next year and if we do we’d like to integrate it with SalesLogix so when we set things up on one system, it’s replicated on the other. No time‐consuming double keying of information!”

But for now, the company is experiencing an excellent ROI. “We can monitor which samples we’re sending out and how much it’s costing us which we couldn’t do before,” explains Clare. “We can also see how well we’re performing at a click of a button and check how attentive we’re being to our bigger customers.

“We also love the way we can monitor an account’s history. For example if a customer rings and says the salesman hasn’t called them back, our customer services agent can say well yes they called yesterday and there was no answer etc. In the past, staff would have to phone the salesman then ring the customer back. It just helps us deliver a far better, more customer‐focused service.

So, after the initial resistance, is everyone impressed? “Oh yes,” says Clare. “The MD and our other senior people like what they’re seeing very much. They like to be shown that if they click here and click there they can see all the information they want. Oh, and our receptionist was chuffed to bits when she created this year’s Christmas card list in just two clicks!”