ASSA ABLOY wins CRM Best Practice Award with Saratoga CRM™
Campbell ( Calif. ), 9 November 2006 – With its innovative “customax” CRM strategy, ASSA ABLOY, a worldwide leading manufacturer of locking solutions for major public and private construction projects, has shot up from nil to the top in Europe ’s most renowned “CRM Best Practices” award competition. During this year’s CRM Expo fair in Nuremberg , Germany , ASSA ABLOY was awarded as second-best in the category “business to business”.
Both, the company’s comprehensive CRM strategy as well as the technical realization based on Saratoga CRM™ stood up to 30 other award candidates and finally convinced the independent jury consisting of 10 CRM, sales, marketing and management consulting experts.
Although a leader in its respective markets, ASSA ABLOY was facing an increasing global competition and price pressure along with decreasing customer loyalty in the past. In 2005, the acquisition of “IKON” and “effeff”, both renowned and well-established brands on the market, additionally urged the company’s need for a common strategic re-alignment.
Based on a deliberate conception of customer-centric operations and business processes, ASSA ABLOY finally decided for Saratoga Systems’ integrated solution approach instead of SAP, which had been – and still is – a standard throughout the entire organization.
“With Saratoga CRM ™ and its business development tool Visual Advisor™, we managed to map the complex structures and relations in our markets as well as to align our multilevel sales projects focussed on the specific needs of our customers”, constituted Christian Vogt, CRM Manager and head of the “customax” enterprise initiative at ASSA ABLOY, Germany . – “Furthermore, the flexibility and integration capabilities of Saratoga ’s framework considerably supported the consolidation of business processes and information related to the merger with IKON and effeff”, Mr. Vogt continued.
With its strong CRM contribution, ASSA ABLOY, again, stands at the forefront of its market. “From a management perspective, we never understood CRM as a project with a fixed finishing line. For us, it has become a “winning” philosophy that we have to prove in everyday’s business to satisfy our customers and maintain our market leadership”, said Christian Vogt.
Filed under: Saratoga Systems
