Spy Alarms secures a platform for rapid growth through its use of Dynamics 365

Spy Alarms is a rapidly growing business serving more than 45,000 customers in the south-east of England. It specialises in electronic security and fire systems. To give its customers the best possible service, it must stay at the forefront of technology as it develops.

The business has grown rapidly through organic growth and an ambitious acquisition strategy. Over the last ten years, Spy Alarms has acquired 21 businesses. With that kind of growth comes legacy issues. Hugo De Beer, Group Technical Director at Spy Alarms, explains that the existing business system was “creaking at the seams”.

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“We will be bringing more cloud-enabled solutions into play as we look to unlock further efficiencies… and deliver the best customer experience in the market. And we will do this with Microsoft as our partner.”

Tom Howard, Group CEO, Spy Alarms

Field service management streamlined with Dynamics 365

After researching the market, the Spy Alarms team opted for Microsoft Dynamics 365 as its new business operations platform. Hugo De Beer explains, “The fix for us was Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.”

The deployment has been enthusiastically received across the business. “Straight away I could see the differences it was going to make within our service desk,” recalls Steven Shippey, Group Service Director at Spy Alarms, “particularly with making sure we had more time with our customers.”

Since switching to Microsoft Dynamics, the Spy Alarms team has delivered improved efficiencies and productivity gains across a wide range of business processes. For example, for the service team, the task of booking a service interview has been streamlined. Whereas it used to take five to six minutes, it now takes just seconds.

Furthermore, the field service team has been able to optimise resource scheduling. This has resulted in a decrease in mileage – with significant cost and sustainability benefits.

A great platform for continued growth

Spy Alarms sales operations have also benefitted from the easier and faster completion of everyday tasks. For example, it is now much simpler and quicker for the sales team to create quotations for customers.

Dynamics 365’s seamless integration with Power BI and Microsoft Teams is another major plus for the Spy Alarms team. The amount of information now immediately available for users – whether in the office or in the field – makes data-driven decision making a reality.

“We now have the information in a useable format,” enthuses Glenn Flannery, Group Commercial Director at Spy Alarms, “so we can make decisions day to day on where our focus goes.”

The experience of deploying Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the benefits the team has achieved has boosted the enthusiasm for further digital transformation across the business. Tom Howard, Group CEO at Spy Alarms, states, “We will be bringing more cloud-enabled solutions into play as we look to unlock further efficiencies, reduce operational costs and, most importantly, improve our service levels to deliver the best customer experience in the market. And we will do this with Microsoft as our partner.”