Synergy Audio Visual is an Australian-basedimporter and distributor of high performance audio and video equipment including Cambridge Audio, Rega, Primare and Elac loudspeakers.

Through the provision of product support and assistance to authorised retailers and their customers, Synergy’s commitment is to the long-term development of the nine product ranges it distributes throughout Australia.

Established in Melbourne in 1995, the company has fourteen full-time staff working across a number of departments including administration, finance, sales, operations and service. Since its inception, Synergy has grown its business significantly and works with approximately three hundred businesses, including retailers and resellers throughout Australia – a number that has roughly tripled over the past six years.

Philip Sawyer, Synergy’s managing director said: “We’re a wholesaler of specialist equipment, so we basically sell to retailers and resellers around the country. We’re trying to build the business for each of the nine brands we work with and the businesses of our customers.”

Synergy also works very closely with a number of suppliers, which are based throughout the world in locations including the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany and Sweden. As a result, Synergy manages support calls from a diverse range of business contacts.

The challenge
As an importer and distributor of high-end technology products, Synergy manages a complex network of contacts, due largely to the number of customers and suppliers involved in the reselling process. The scope of contacts Synergy engages with is broad and varied, requiring stringent management.

“Prior to first implementing GoldMine in 2001, we were relying on Outlook and paper diaries for managing contacts and correspondence,” said Sawyer. “We got to the point in our growth plan where we realised we needed a centralised repository for all our contact information.”

With a sales team across Australia, Synergy also required an efficient means of logging customer correspondence – both verbal and via email. This also needed to be linked back to a centralised database, managed from the company’s headquarters in Melbourne. Similarly, with suppliers based throughout Europe and the United States, Synergy also faced a challenge to effectively log and manage all correspondence with these companies, regardless of location.

Solution
Synergy began using FrontRange’s GoldMine Standard Edition in 2001. The decision to partner with FrontRange followed extensive research by Synergy into a number of CRM vendors, including ACT and Tracker CRM.

The decision to purchase a CRM solution was part of Synergy’s plan to rapidly expand the company. “Basically, what we wanted to achieve with GoldMine was a centralised knowledge base for the entire company,” said Sawyer.

“We wanted to be able to effectively manage all information and contact between ourselves, our suppliers and our customers.”

Since first implementing GoldMine Standard Edition, Synergy has continued to invest in the CRM solution, having successfully implemented two major upgrades.

“We were on the GoldMine Standard Edition for quite a while, but as our business grew, so too did the scope of what was required from our CRM solution. The natural progression was for us to move to Corporate Edition and then most recently we’ve further upgraded to Premium. Each upgrade has been seamless and delivered on budget and on time.”

GoldMine Premium Edition has been developed specifically for medium-sized businesses and distributed enterprises. It features an advanced service and support module with the CRM functionality of GoldMine Corporate Edition.

Synergy engaged with Forward Thinking Consulting Services, a Melbourne based CRM specialist and FrontRange Elite Partner, to assist with the implementation of GoldMine.

“From the outset Forward Thinking has been an absolutely vital and fundamental element in managing and maintaining our GoldMine platform,” said Sawyer. “They have become an incredible asset and wonderful supporter of both the product, as well as ourselves.”

Results
Implementing FrontRange GoldMine has enabled Synergy to acquire a centralised knowledge base for the entire company. This information can be accessed by staff regardless of their location, allowing them to manage their complex eco-system of customers and suppliers. “GoldMine has allowed us to open up the information base of the company to all staff, enabling them to do their job more effectively,” said Sawyer. “It makes the information in the company far more transparent and allows us to handle any service or support issues much more efficiently.

Staff in the field can access information on their laptops or PDAs, providing full access to customer and case histories as well as Synergy’s growth has also been well supported due to the scalability of GoldMine, with a clear upgrade path. This saw the company move from Standard Edition, to Corporate and finally, Premium Edition, adding vital service and support functionality.

Sawyer added: “When we started working with GoldMine we had about one hundred and twenty companies doing business with us. Today, we manage nine separate product lines and have more than three hundred customers. The amount of business we do with each customer has also increased GoldMine’s ability to provide a graphical view of customer contacts in the form of an organisational chart has also proved a welcome feature for Synergy.

“In any one of our customer organisations there may be up to ten or twenty people that we deal with,” said Sawyer.

“The org chart feature is one of the pivotal advantages GoldMine has over other products on the market right now. We haven’t seen a product that has GoldMine’s level of sophistication in that area.”

For more information
FrontRange Solutions
www.FrontRange.com.au
Ph: +61 2 8080 3300 or txt 'FR' to 4664

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