Haines New Zealand, an innovative recruitment advertising company, has carved a unique market niche over the last 12 years. Comprising more than 70 full-time professionals in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch, the company has a customer base of over 450 companies and places over 50,000 job-vacancy advertisements per annum.

Damian Sainsbury, chief operating officer at Haines, says the company reviewed its business structure just over 18 months ago, and identified a number of areas where there was great potential for further growth.

“To achieve this, we needed to introduce a marketing-led approach to our business. Unfortunately our businesses infrastructure at that time would not support this approach.”

Previously, the company was using a number of disparate and often outdated spreadsheets to manage customer information and sales opportunities. “We were a company of ‘spreadsheeters,’” says Sainsbury. “This meant that something as simple as the yearly Christmas card mail out could be a drama, let alone actually extracting constructive, valuable meaning from customer data.”

Haines saw implementing a CRM application as the best option to enable its employees to spend more time on solutions and customer services, and less on business administration.

“When we assessed a range of CRM solutions in the market we quickly saw that Microsoft CRM fitted perfectly with our requirements,” says Sainsbury. “Microsoft CRM had the potential to improve business processes, provide increased functionality and could be integrated into our existing IT infrastructure.” Haines bought 60 user licenses and, at the time, was one of the first and largest CRM 1.2 customers in New Zealand. With partner, Complete Solutions, and an in-house technology team, it implemented Microsoft CRM over a two-month period. Sainsbury says Microsoft CRM was attractive from a user’s perspective.

“We liked the fact that we wouldn’t have to extensively train our employees in how to use the software because the user-interface is user-friendly and very similar to Microsoft Outlook, a piece of software our people use everyday. They could start using it from day one and could then be brought up to speed on specific functionalities when needed.” After using Microsoft CRM for 18 months, Haines has been impressed with the overall functionality of the application and its ability to support strategic business processes.

“We deployed the solution, got the basics up and  running and started to see immediate benefits. And it continues to deliver. It’s an application which allows us to drive functionality and customise the solution where and when we need it to reflect the business’ dynamic needs.

“For example, Microsoft CRM easily integrated with our existing financial system, IBM AS/400. Financial information is now seamlessly and automatically uploaded into CRM. Any changes made to our financial information are automatically reflected in CRM, which saves a lot of time on the shop floor as well as at a management level. We can rely on the data and no longer have to question whether it’s outdated or inaccurate.”

Sainsbury says Microsoft CRM has transformed the way employees manage customer information, enabling them to have a more eff ective relationship with customers.

Haines now plans to take its CRM integration to the next level by implementing the soon to be released Microsoft CRM 3.0.

“Haines has seen such a positive impact from CRM 1.2 that we can’t wait to upgrade to CRM 3.0 and we plan to roll it out early this year,” says Sainsbury.

“New functionalities, such as centralising marketing collateral or being able to run contact reports that let us see which customers haven’t been contacted recently, will create consistency and more visibility on customer-interaction across all three offices.

With the increased functionality of CRM 3.0 our marketing department and frontline staff will be able to give customers pertinent insights rather than just more information.”

For more information

www.haines.co.nz
www.microsoft.co.nz

Microsoft Business Solutions CRM
Anne Frith, 09 362 5865
askdynnz@microsoft.com

May 2006