Software Provider Adopts CRM in the Cloud over Salesforce.com
Magma Design Automation is a leading, fast-growing provider of electronic design automation (EDA) software. Semiconductor manufacturers around the world use products from Magma Design Automation to design complex, high-performance integrated circuits. Founded in 1997,
the company is headquartered in San Jose, California, and has 18 globally distributed offices. For many years, the company used a hosted software solution from Salesforce.com to support sales, marketing, research and development (R&D), finance, and customer relationships. The solution was problematic for Magma Design Automation. Says Vickie Flores, Vice President, Information Services at Magma Design Automation, "We had problems getting data out of the system and were unable to gain a 360-degree view of our customers." Search was also difficult. Flores explains, "It was impossible to save a search. If you edited your search criteria, you had to start over. It took up to 15 minutes to perform a detailed search. Search complications were one reason that engineers and sales representatives stopped using the solution." In trying to make Salesforce.com work, Flores and her IT team committed significant resources, but were not able to reduce the company's expenditures or fit the solution to the business's requirements.
To address these challenges, Magma Design Automation engaged with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Hitachi Consulting to transition its global organization to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Magma Design Automation rolled out the new solution at the same time to all company offices worldwide in their local languages, including Chinese, German, French, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. Employees in North America, the United Kingdom, and India access the English-language version of the solution. Everybody except for HR and building services, close to 650 employees, uses the solution.
Magma Design Automation generated substantial savings and expects a significant increase in sales productivity. "We are very happy with the low cost of ownership of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online," states Flores. "What's more, the return-on-investment on the solution is simply amazing." From an IT management perspective, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is highly efficient for Magma Design Automation. "System administration is very easy," says Flores. "We only need one IT team member to support the solution-not three of them, as we did previously… We've already reduced the number of internal support tickets by 80 percent and saved at least $200,000 so far."
In addition, Magma Design Automation finds that Microsoft's licensing fees for the hosted customer relationship management solution contribute to cost control. As Flores describes, "Our licensing costs with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online are more than 70 percent less than what we used to pay." Because customers can now take care of business on their own, download software patches, and obtain fast responses from the company's representatives, Magma Design Automation was able to reduce customer support calls by 50 percent. In addition, representatives no longer spend time exporting data into Access databases or Excel spreadsheets, eliminating what used to be a significant IT support load. States Flores, "We expect a 50 percent increase in sales productivity, because the representatives have more time to interact with customers. The representatives can stay in their preferred software environment to work with data. And, with the new quote system and ERP integration, they can immediately give customers reliable information and easily verify order status for them."
Flores summarizes, "There is much more we can do with the solution to make our sales, marketing, and R&D more effective as the company grows. Adjusting to our business and offering extreme scalability, Microsoft Dynamics CRM generates a fabulous return on investment. It has made our lives much easier."
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Editors Note:
Magma Design Automation has been a very active participant in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM "Don't Get Forced" campaign. For more information on why Magma switch from Salesforce.com to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, visit: www.dontgetforced.com
