Smit Lamnalco

This international maritime service provider has significantly strengthened her grip on sales projects. Having implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM, sales is approached in a more structured manner and decisions or no longer made by a gut-feeling

Smit Lamnalco is a leading worldwide player in the provision of maritime services. Using more than 200 ships the company provides all the services that oil and gas companies need to make transport possible, from towing and anchoring to the supply of food and the transfer of goods.

“Smit Lamnalco was established in 2012 as a result of a merger between Smit and Lamnalco”, says Jeroen Oudshoorn, Director Business Development at Smit Lamnalco. “After the merger we started with a blank slate in sales. The progress of the sales processes was recorded in Excel sheets. Our offices in Rotterdam, Nigeria, India, UAE, Russia, Singapore and Australia exchanged Excel sheets back and forth by email.

This resulted in it not being possible for everyone to have the same insight at the same time. You were always one or two lists behind. It was obvious that more structure and insight was a necessity. We wanted to make the commercial process transparent for the entire sales organization and the rest
of the organization.

“Although our sales processes include complex factors, everything depends on timing. Sometimes we have two years to provide a tender with information, but, sometimes only a couple of weeks. Especially when the time pressure is high efficiency is crucial.

Processes must function optimally”, says Oudshoorn. “This is why we wanted a solution that would provide us structure, real-time insight and that could help optimize our sales process.” Once we choose Dynamics CRM, Smit Lamnalco looked for a partner to translate her wishes in the best and fastest manner into a workable solution.

“Our Directors had a good feeling regarding HSO and our Group IT Manager had already successfully worked with HSO in the past. This ensured a quick decision process and a logical choice.”

The Dynamics CRM implementation was realized very quickly. “We had our business requirements, goals and wishes ready and even the design was completed before we really started.

HSO was able to show us that our goals we attainable very quickly. In approximately five weeks the system was ready for use. The project was executed according to the Scrum-methodology. After every quick sprint a check was done to make sure the development matched the expectations.

Thanks to the speed, flexibility and great collaboration the project was delivered on time. HSO managed to pick up on our wishes flawlessly. We truly appreciate that HSO is a solution minded organization equipped with best practices. They are a very valuable sparring partner to us.”

Dynamics CRM at Smit Lamnalco was configured as close to the standard as possible. Oudshoorn explains why: “It was a calculated choice to keep the system as ‘lean & mean’ as possible. We wanted to work quicker and more effectively.

Complex CRM-processes don’t fit this scenario. This is why there is as little ‘nice to know’-information in the system as possible. We did not want to expand on the information we have, but, to enhance it. Our master data management system ensures that CRM, ERP and SharePoint are connected and that the right information goes into the right system. This way we always have one Single Source of Truth.

The focus is truly based on making commercial processes transparent and on tender management. Thanks to this, sharing information between departments and countries has significantly improved. Everyone now has real-time, clear and complete information in the correct context. Users are proactively informed when there is going to be a change in a project that they are involved in.

This enables employees to be in contact with customers and prospects at the right time to contact with a fitting offer or, for example, to discuss the progress of a project. Action is no longer taken by gut-feeling, but by a process structure. Thanks to better insight into processes, projects and the market we are able to make better decisions."

With the replacement of the Excel sheets thanks to the introduction of Dynamics CRM our employee behavior also needed to change. “By the best of my knowledge high user-adaption is only reached by making sure to keep the system as simple and easily accessible as possible. Anytime, anywhere the users can work. The more the CRM system is used the more evident the value becomes.

Now that the users see the value and the advantages, they have their own suggestions and wishes. Because of this we are now busy with implementing auto-fill of offers from CRM. There are a lot of user questions, to support this as well as optimization and implementation of new functionality we have a Support Agreement with HSO Managed Services. Together with HSO we make sure wishes become reality”, states Oudshoorn.