Microsoft Dynamics CRM in the Marine Industry

Louise Alderton, 21 May 2011

The Marine or Maritime Industry covers a range of businesses. Anything from designing, constructing, manufacturing, acquiring, supplying, repairing or maintaining marine related vessels, to processes and operations. With many different things to consider and manage it is important you have the right tools in place. Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software with its xRM (anything relationship management) framework can go way beyond the organisation of a typical buyer-seller situation. It really can give you the tools to manage your business end-to-end.

*

The marine industry can be complex. Some of the challenges companies in this industry face are lengthy projects that require on-going communication; inadequate technology constant technological innovation; efficient resource management; global competition; and collaboration and integration across business functions. With a tailored Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution these obstacles can be overcome allowing your business to run like clockwork.

Let’s take a look at some of the features a Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution can offer to companies in the Marine Industry:

Visibility Across All Facets of Your Business

With a Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution you are able to achieve a complete 360-degree view of not only your customers but every aspect of your organisation from projects and planning to staff collaboration and communication. This solution provides a central, easily accessible hub for all information. You can maintain a clear picture of each current project while providing your staff consistent, relevant and timely information to assist them in their day-to-day responsibilities.

Consistent Communication

Marine organisations often face lengthy projects that span over months or even years. During this time it is important that communication remains strong and consistent with not only your team working on the project but with your customer too. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has tools to let you achieve this from bulk email and templates to reminders and activity delegation.

Integration with Other Essential Systems

You can even seamlessly integrate your Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution with your existing systems, including ERP, shop-floor control, inventory, financial, and sales-order processing. This allows you to gather information from across your company giving you a complete picture for more effective management.

Automation and Efficiency

With workflow and automation functionality you can standardise and streamline many administrative processes across many marine processes. This might include lead capture, opportunity management, follow-up communications, service scheduling and reporting. Automating these processes creates huge efficiencies and frees up resources to be used on more important tasks.

Data Management and Reporting

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Get business intelligence tools to help you analyse your business processes, identify possible enhancements, and adjust quickly to changing conditions. Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides visual tools and reports to help you act on the insights that you gain. These tools can also assist in complying with regulation requirements through comprehensive information management and reporting.

Adaptable, Sustainable Platform

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is customisable, adaptable and sustainable. This gives you the ability to leverage the platform to build solutions which address the changing needs of marine organisations cost-effectively. This cuts development and support costs, while ensuring seamless integration with legacy systems. You will have the ability to continually improve and build on this platform allowing you to keep up with technological innovation and providing a sustainable platform for the future.

Now let’s take a look at a couple of real-world examples of a Microsoft Dynamics CRM solution in action in the Marine Industry:

TruMarine Pte Ltd

**           

Tru-Marine is a specialist in the turbocharger repairs and parts supply industry who pride themselves in offering high standards of customer-centric reliable service delivery. Through the years Group Managing Director, David Loke has witnessed the drastic dwindling of the time vessels spent in port from the previous seven days to the current seven hours. For Tru-Marine’s maritime customers, this means that, upon their vessels’ arrival at a port of call, they have only 7 hours to discharge or load their cargoes, while having their turbochargers, engines and on-board equipment serviced. For the company this meant staff needed to get their work done right the first time. After several proof of concept exercises, Tru-Marine chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to empower its business. This solution provided integrated functionalities to handle their complex operational and financial requirements and scalability to support their future growth.

The biggest benefit from the new system is seamless information integration, which has improved management visibility. Management reporting has been reduced from days to just hours.  By integrating the operational and financial processes, data now flows seamlessly between the sales, service, purchasing and financial functions. The elimination of manual data entry has resulted in time savings and enhanced data accuracy. With all customer-related information including inventory, customer orders and service interactions residing in a single system, Tru-Marine can now better serve its customers and accurately track account history by customer, vessel and turbocharger type.

Read the full case study

King Plastic

***

King Plastic is a leading manufacturer of polymer sheets, slabs, and massive shapes used in applications ranging from marine craft to food service products. More than 150 employees work at the 150,000-square-foot King Plastic facility, which houses its corporate offices and a manufacturing plant that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They were seeking to centralize accounting and financial reporting, streamline its manufacturing operations, and improve customer service. The solution King Plastic chose was a team of Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

To maximize its return on investment in these solutions, King Plastic enrolled in the Business Ready Enhancement Plan and Software Assurance for Microsoft Dynamics. Through these offerings, the company gains access to Customer Source, an online training and technical support resource. Leveraging the knowledge base and e-learning tools on the Customer Source Web site they were able to flatten IT support costs, increase productivity, and improve change management.

Employees at King Plastic frequently turn to the Customer Source Web site to seek out answers to their questions and learn more about the versatility of the Microsoft Dynamics solutions they use every day. Because Customer Source is so easy to access and use, it encourages our employees to take initiative and empowers them to quickly find their own answers, increasing overall productivity. In addition substantial efficiency gains in preparing employee training sessions to her own use of the Customer Source Web site saving approximately 20 hours on each training session.

Read the full case study

* Image from: http://new-motortrends.com/
** Image from: http://sg.jobsdb.com/SG/en/Search/JobAdSingleDetail?jobsIdList=400003000404477
*** Image from: http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/document.do?docId=582&title=King+StarBoard