As Cincom sells its own guided selling system, the company uses this technology to provide customers with knowledge-based search throughout the entire product lines and also through specific prepackaged solution bundles as well. This has been very effective in upselling customers to a specific, customized solution.
The use of information technologies has also drastically changed how the distribution of products is also handled, in addition to the delivery of services. Cincom had in the past relied on a manually-based contract management system that took months at times to coordinate pricing, delivered software updates and special requirements of customers. Each contract had to be manually updated and each change had to be approved by the controller of the company. As of 2009, the company completely redefined their contract management system and had it integrate into the Microsoft CRM system. This provided advance notice to the sales teams when a contract was about to expire, defined the terms of the contract, showed the history of the contract, and provided a scorecard of the lifetime value...
With all this information, the sales teams now know when to begin discussions around a contract renewal and also know exactly what the prices are for the customers.
Within Cincom, any new software application cannot be released until a contract has been updated. In the past, the contract would be walked down to software distribution, where a CD was made and then shipped to the customer. This is no longer the case because software distribution is integrated directly to the contract management system. Now when a contract is renewed the CD is automatically prepared and shipped within hours. Customer satisfaction is way up as a result. A second area of where the combination of the CRM and contract management systems is paying off is in getting premium customer support sold to the largest accounts. Now with the combination of contract value and CRM data, sales reps are better able to manage their time and target only the most profitable and potentially high value customers for service upgrades. The result has been a 18% increase in profits for services in the last twelve months.
