When Baw Baw Shire Council decided to replace its existing customer access request system to improve first-point-of-contact resolution of constituent enquiries, it found that no off-the-shelf application could meet its specific needs. So it built its own, working with the Microsoft Services team and Microsoft partners JayThom and Corporate Strategic Systems. Called CouncilRM™, the solution is founded on Microsoft Dynamics® CRM. It brings together constituent request management data with information about properties, roads and council assets to provide a complete picture of constituents and their interactions. Using familiar tools in Microsoft® Office Outlook®, council workers can view constituent contact details and manage requests, emails, appointments and tasks, helping them respond more efficiently to constituent requests. CouncilRM is available to other councils

Melbourne Business School (MBS) was founded in 1954 through the University of Melbourne. The school wanted to strategically align its brand positioning message, ‘Global. Business. Leaders.’, to every facet of its business. Its well intentioned but departmental approach to managing data on students (called ‘constituents’) hampered efforts to deliver services and develop relationships to a standard that was commensurate with its brand. In 2007 MBS began a comprehensive process of organisational change. It introduced a customer relationship management (CRM) system based on Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 4.0 and Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. By introducing a common platform for data management and taking a life-cycle view of constituents, MBS improved communications with applicants, students, participants and alumni and projected a more professional image.

Sheet metal engineering company WH Williams is a leading Australian manufacturer of custom-made metal products. WH Williams wanted a resource planning tool that could assimilate resources, inventory, production, costs and billing data to enhance the efficiency of its production schedules and improve customer service. In 2005 the company implemented the enterprise resource planning solution, Microsoft Dynamics® AX 3.0, and progressively upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 in April 2008. As a result, WH Williams increased machine productivity by 30 per cent, cut inventory by 40 per cent and reduced its average dispatch-to-invoice time to one day. The company dramatically improved its cash flow and the ability to tell customers precisely when their order would be delivered. The company now saves approximately $200,000 a year on administration costs.

Melbourne-based Map Coffee supplies restaurants, cafes and the corporate market with coffee, coffee-making machines and coffee-related products. The company wanted to develop its ‘bean-to-cup’ business proposition, under which Map Coffee places machines on corporate premises and charges according to the volume of coffee consumed. To do this, the company needed its sales force to work to a new franchise and distribution model. Working with Microsoft® Gold Partner Oakton, Map Coffee installed Microsoft Dynamics® GP, with a mobile PDA data interface based on the Windows Mobile platform. The company gained a finance and inventory tracking system that kept pace with its business development. The system has provided the company with the business management information it needs to expand quickly in Australia and prepare to launch its business abroad.

Architectural design firm Woods Bagot maintains 16 offices around the globe and needed to redesign its network to ease collaboration among different groups. The company engaged Microsoft Services through its Premier Support agreement to review network designs and successfully rolled out Active Directory Domain Services and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 implementations in just six months. Realizing the strategic value of Microsoft Services, Woods Bagot signed on for an Operations Strategic Review to ensure closer alignment between the company’s IT operations and its evolving business requirements. Now, the IT team at Woods Bagot has clear, scheduled steps to achieve short-term and long-term operational goals.

Established in February 2007, the Australian Technical College – Perth South (ATC – Perth South) is one of a national network of new independent secondary schools that provide vocational training for Year 11 and 12 apprentices. The college found it difficult to keep track of its 150 first-year apprentices as they rotated every five weeks between the college’s campus and job placements. By deploying Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 4.0 as a relationship management system, the college centralized all placement-related data, enabling it to track individual- and company-level placement performance, analyze apprenticeship outcomes and trends, monitor local industry needs, and ensure that students gained apprenticeships that offer the best chance of future prosperity.

Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology (SNP), a leading Australian pathology company, needed a system to manage and monitor incidents that occurred while collecting blood samples from patients. Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Productiv developed a mobile solution hosted by a ‘software as a service’ specialist, Emantra, which is based on Microsoft® Dynamics™ CRM 4.0 and Microsoft Windows® Mobile® 6.1. By deploying handhelds to pathology site staff, managers react faster to patient incidents such as fainting and seizures. In-built trend analysis is designed to help managers discover what proactive measures can be taken to reduce the number of incidents.

When Dubai-based DP World acquired P&O Ports in 2006, the company’s Australia Region was given the opportunity to develop its own national information management system. In late 2006 and early 2007, DP World implemented a suite of Microsoft products centered on the enterprise edition of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. By designing web-based electronic forms with InfoPath 2007, publishing them using InfoPath Form Services 2007, and generating workflows in SharePoint, DP World created forms-based processes that were accessible from Microsoft Office and a browser. As a result, staff were able to manage and track key port operations processes wherever they worked. Improved document management also resulted in better collaboration between civil engineers, enhanced port security, and improved version control over critical port safety manuals and procedures.

Kingfisher International manufactures and distributes testing, repair, and verification equipment for fibre optic networks in the telecoms, datacom, defense, and automotive industries. Kingfisher customer relations were hampered by an existing customer relationship management (CRM) system that could not track multiple contacts and contracts with its larger clients, and did not integrate with its mail and accounting systems. In 2004, Kingfisher implemented Microsoft® CRM 1.2. In late 2006, the company upgraded to Microsoft CRM 3.0, integrating it with Microsoft® Dynamics™ GP and Microsoft® Office Outlook®. Kingfisher now keeps detailed track of even its biggest and most complex customers. The company also provides global round-the-clock customer support, and has learned to develop sophisticated and targeted marketing campaigns using its customer contacts list.

Visy Industries, a diversified packaging manufacturing company, has been providing e-commerce transactions for its customers for over 10 years. However, the company’s e-commerce platform was a combination of legacy applications that had evolved over time. Consequently, there was no overarching management environment, and e-commerce became expensive and time-consuming to support. Visy’s existing systems were insufficiently flexible to allow the company to adapt easily to customers’ e-commerce systems and standards. In 2007, Visy implemented Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 R2. The middleware solution allowed Visy to standardise all e-commerce customers and supplier transactions on one platform. This improved e-commerce transaction monitoring, reduced technical support requirements, and allowed Visy to adapt quickly to all customers’ transaction systems.