BCR - Multi-site SugarCRM Solution

SugarCRM customisation BCR Associates Ltd are one of the fastest growing and successful cost reduction companies in he UK. Founded in 2005, they help over 600 companies a year save money with their utility, HR and Finance costs. By ensuring that they take no fee from their end customers (tehy pass all o fteh saving on) they have undertaken huge growth rates.

They have recently started a Franchise network across the UK which has met with considerable success. Due to their continued growth, they required a CRM solution that would meet their exacting demands.

 

Clystnet Ltd first met with BCR Associates in 2009. They required a CRM solution to replace their ageing Access database. In particular, it needed to be:

  • Cost Effective

Like most companies, BCR's budget was limited. They were happy to pay for development time, training and support, but didn't want to be paying license fees.

  • Web Based

They required their database to be accessible from any internet enabled location globally and without any special software. This way staff could access the system from home, Franchise owners from global locations (without the need for major IT investment) and their consultants could access on the road via iPhones (and later iPads).

  • Highly customisable

BCR appreciated that a 'one size fits all' approach was unlikely to work. They needed details of their clients, their locations and all services provided to the client. It was imperative that the service information complied with regulations, and that any stored information could be easily retrieved. In addition, different services (gas, electricity, telecoms etc) needed completely different information capturing.

  • Modular

Although BCR had a clear and well defined idea of what they wanted at their start, they appreciated that their needs would change over the coming years. They wanted any CRM solution to be a long term investment. New areas and functions had to be easy to add.

  • Secure
BCR's system contained commercialy sensitive data which had to be secure and well backed up. The system also had to work with Franchise owners accros the UK who would only be able to see their data
  • Able to cope with 40million+ pieces of data

After 5 years of successful trading, BCR required a system that could cope with the huge amounts of data they had gathered and would continue to gather.

  • Future Support (and no tie in) guaranteed

BCR were keen to ensure that any system they chose would survive teh company that installed it. As such, a bespoke system was out of the question.

vTiger and SugarCRM were considered. Being Opensource, they met the Cost Effective and Future Support Guaranteed requirements of their remit.

After consideration, we recommended SugarCRM over vTiger - we consider it a more flexible solution and better for a high degree of customisation, as was clearly required here. As a modular system, it also met another of their requirements. SugarCRM is based on mySQL, so the system would happily cope with huge amounts of data.

Clystnet Ltd is one of the most creative and technically ambitious SugarCRM development companies in the South West - but BCR were reassured that should they wish, being an opensource solution, they would be able to source support from elsewhere if required.

The system was successfully launched in May 2009, and since that date many new features have been added.

Unusual SugarCRM Highlights include:

  • Unified lognotes - Our customised SugarCRM shows log notes for ANY record associated with an Account (Contacts, Services etc) in one plaice.
  • Subpanles shown as tabs - for ease of navigation
  • Dynamic 'required fields' - depending on the value of one field - other fields are dynamically required or not required, allowing the required fields to vary depending on the status of the record.
  • Kinamu Reporter was used for reports and Security Suite for site security. These two modules don't work together, however we custom built a solution not offered any where else to facilitate their succesful operation together.
  • Dynamic Panels - various panels/fields are hidden depending on the value of a dropdown. As such, when the dropdown is set for example as GAS - then only fields relating to GAS are shown.
  • Quick Note - we designed and built a 'Quick Note' button that can be pressed and any view to quickly add a log note.
We are presently building a SugarCRM automation system that will automate the sending of emails and the auto changing of field values depending on the setting (and date/time) of other fields. As such, it could be set to email reminders, email the client or make updates at specified times.
We are also developing a system that will auto-parse (read) an email and automatically add a record.

 

 

A reference from ApptUK