The Challenge
Total ID is a leader in the UK’s identification product industry. Once established, the business followed a steep growth curve and headcount increased.
As an operation that primarily sources, markets and delivers largely bespoke products to businesses, driving up efficiency and maintaining competitive pricing without compromising on quality of service are pivotal.
When the founders of Total ID started the business, they were already known to the industry and so sales rapidly grew. In a relatively short time, the company’s customer base exceeded those initial contacts and it started to need:
- Larger-scale sales intelligence, e.g. where new business was coming from and buying patterns
- Automation that reduced the admin burden
- A system that would provide them with visibility over all areas of the business
- A method of ensuring all information, from all employees, was structured, accessible and usable
- Technology that would drive workflow planning and correspondence co-ordination
- More sophisticated data storage and management
- Better diary management facilities that were integrated with customer and order records.
The business had become too large to be managed on its existing CRM system. Although it was loaded with information, it consisted of extensive notes that various employees made when discussing requirements with prospects and customers.
“It took too long to find records, and even longer to find the piece of information we needed within a file. We’d grown out of our CRM system. Although it was good for storing records, it didn’t have a format that organised the information when it was being inputted, and didn’t give enough business value back,” explained Debbie Thomas, Office Manager at Total ID.
The next system would have to support every individual’s activities within the company. The business was already highly organised, but any new technology would have to reflect this – and improve on it, to add value.