4-page Case Study - Posted 6/26/2007

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Portico

Portico de Mexico found its team excellence through Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Pórtico de México is a company fully engaged in marketing office furniture and food and drink equipment, with an Internet-based strategy. Although the company was set up only a few years ago, it has kept a 10% annual growth which has enabled it to consolidate its infrastructure and work tools so as to project constant growth. Since startup, Pórtico has been a company that cared about customers needs; this has led to a search for constant improvement in its two main features: service and quality.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has become our main information system as it is shared by the main areas in the Company: sales, administration, purchases, billing and marketing. Raúl López General Manager Pórtico de México

Company Profile

Pórtico de México was founded by young professionals in January 2004, as a business unit belonging to LOGAR (an Oaxaca company with regional presence and more than 10-year experience in selling machinery and equipment to the hotel and restaurant industry). Pórtico’s main feature is its Internet-based business strategy. It has two business lines at country level: PORTICO (www.porticodemexico.com), which is the Company’s business image, specialized in providing machinery and equipment to the food and drink industries; and OFITEK (www.ofitek.com), the Company’s division that specializes in selling office furniture. PÓRTICO’s product and service line is divided into six main product lines: refrigeration, restaurant, bakery and butchery equipment, stainless steel and snacks. OFITEK’s production is oriented to office modules, desks, partitions, filing cabinets, chairs, etc. Pórtico is present both in Oaxaca and Mexico City; its head office is located in Oaxaca where all its operating and administrative operations take place. The Mexico City office was opened due to the need to increase its national market presence and to manage relationships with most of its suppliers and partners located in that area. Pórtico’s future plans are to increase some of its import products to be introduced to the market, as well as improving and automating business processes, aiming at reducing operating expenses and enhancing customer service. In the medium term, the current system will be integrated with other Microsoft Dynamics solutions.

Business Challenge

A particularly relevant task requiring immediate attention was the lack of accurate control of the personnel in charge of the prospects contacted both through the Internet or by phone, and their related engagements and activities, thus leading to difficulties in generating a database including relevant customer information. Consequently, Pórtico needed a corporate application enabling it to standardize, centralize, update and share information across all areas in the Company.

Solution

Pórtico de México chose Microsoft Dynamics CRM because of its trust in Microsoft. “We decided right away that it would be this brand, we reviewed all product documents and contacted two suppliers (referred to on Microsoft’s website) to ask for more information on the product; they provided us with a couple of demo versions and we finally chose Fillgap’s proposal” says Raúl López, the Company’s General Manager. Once we had made the decision to purchase Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the Company invested in new infrastructure, starting with full installation of SBS and SWL Server on a new server for such purpose. Among the main features and benefits that called Pórtico’s attention was Microsoft Dynamics CRM 1.2 interface integration with Outlook CRM Sales interface at the customers’ terminals. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 1.2 update to the 3.0 version was carried out within two months. Pórtico is currently exploiting the CRM modules available such as: sales (prospects and customers administration and management, including suppliers, creditors, allocation of accounts and contacts by user through tasks and activities planning), marketing and services (customer service, and marketing campaigns planning, follow-up and control cases have been documented) and finally, Microsoft Exchange Server (e-mailing making it easy to manage and keep a record of e-mails containing quotations and follow-up sheets).

It allows us to become stronger, so as to grow in an orderly manner and with confidence in our ability to do so, while maintaining high service and internal operations quality levels”. Raúl López General Manager Pórtico de México

Benefits

Thanks to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the organization consolidated its data and developed consistent procedures and standards applicable to the operations in all of the company’s areas. Microsoft Dynamics CRM provided Pórtico with great system use flexibility by making it easy to follow up or assign responsibilities to users. Additionally, the total reliability and confidence in our centralized information about our prospects and customers resulted in meeting the commitments of punctuality and online reporting and history. According to Raúl López, Pórtico México General Manager, the results obtained in terms of percentages are as follows:

• 10% increase in billings during the first six-month period of use.
• 20% decrease in sales personnel dealing with the same number of requests.
• Decreased operating times (based on man hours) in the administrative, sales, billing and purchase areas.