Brother International Europe (BIE) goes live with CRM 7.0 multi-channel service solution
13 Jul 2011
The highly successful introduction of SAP CRM Service in 2007 enabled BIE to realise year on year reductions in support costs. Improvements have been driven by a combination of implementing best practice service processes, greater automation (e.g. automated email handling) and continuous improvement as a result of improved transparency and consistency of key process measures across Europe.
BIE's business is dynamic and systems need to allow ongoing change to be easily incorporated. Introducing changes in a version which is out of support can be risky. With CRM 4.0 soon to go out of support BIE embarked upon a CRM upgrade in Aug 2010.
To minimise business disruption the guiding principle was to re-build 'like for like', and no new functionality would be implemented.
Subsequent phases could then leverage new functionality. This approach allowed not only minimised business risk but also reduced the risk of scope creep.
Bluefin adopted the tried and tested proof of concept (PoC) approach, minimising the length of any change freeze and also enabling the business as usual landscape to remain unaffected.
Bluefin's offshore basis and development team in Malaysia worked hand in hand with the onshore team. Timezone differences were used to extend productive time and minimise duration whilst reducing costs.
The entire CRMv4 bespoke code has been re-written in the new CRMv7 format, the system went live at the end of May across 15 countries and phone, web and email channels.
