23 February 2007

Endsleigh Insurance is a UK-based intermediary specialising in the provision of insurance and financial products. The operations of Endsleigh Insurance can be divided into two distinct areas: the business development area and the commercial area. Both divisions had traditionally relied on a combination of paper-based documentation and a Lotus Notes based system to keep track of prospects and manage administration and communication. However, faced with an ever increasing sales force and complex sales processes, the company was quick to identify that its existing system simply did not have the functionality or scalability to grow with the company's needs.

In addition, the company's data was being stored in various fragmented systems with no uniform method of identifying lead conversion rates. The company had to spend excessive time and costs setting up agents on various systems, the number of which also affected security across the group. With no effective lead or account management system in place, the sales team was unable to share, view, or manage account information. More ominously, the limited scope of the existing system meant that the commercial division had hit a brick wall in terms of taking on new prospects; it simply couldn't manage any more clients. Clearly, a new solution was urgently required.

Endsleigh Insurance had an existing relationship with Microsoft Gold Partner Ciber, which had supported the implementation of Microsoft Windows SharePoint with Active Directory. Consequently, Ciber, in conjunction with Endsleigh Insurance, reviewed a number of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions before settling on Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Microsoft CRM was chosen primarily for its unique functionality and scalability, which the company struggled to find elsewhere at a comparable price. Rebecca Smith, business project manager, Endsleigh Insurance, says: "We required a solution that would take our opportunities, and let us convert them from leads to prospects and, finally, into clients. Microsoft CRM lets us do so easily. We looked at other products for both divisions but it was going to be very expensive to get the functionality we required. The Microsoft solution gave us exactly what we wanted at a reasonable cost."

Prior to the implementation, both divisions had to search through a consolidated database to find information. This was a time-consuming task that involved team members searching through a substantial body of irrelevant information to find the data they required. With Microsoft CRM 3.0, users in each division are able to access the data they need quickly and accurately. This saves employees significant time throughout the day and contributes to a more efficient working process.

More than 1,000 employees have now migrated from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. They no longer have to worry that mail sent or received from different systems will not be formatted correctly.

The upgrade to Microsoft CRM 3.0 gave employees direct access to information relevant to their division. Employee efficiency has increased and the company is now in a position to increase its client base. Furthermore, the group's various teams can now see two unique views of the same information. This means that each team has timely access to the information they require, rather than having to search through data not directly relevant to them.

Owing to the vast amount of paper-based material required under the old system, Endsleigh Insurance was at particular risk should a fire or some similar disaster strike its operations. However, now that all its data has been digitised, not only is it easier and faster to access, but the group has been able to devise a clear business continuity plan to minimise any potential impact.

"From a business continuity and security point of view, the new solution is extremely beneficial," says Smith. "We are now able to hold backup files offsite so, in the event of a fire, for example, we could be up and running very quickly and its unlikely our users would even know a problem had occurred."

Furthermore, because the employees of Endsleigh Insurance were already familiar with the look and feel of Microsoft products, training was limited to a single day for each team, which, according to Smith, was more than adequate for staff to gain a good working knowledge of the solution. "We are currently in the process of standardising on Microsoft technology, and thus the seamless integration of Microsoft products is a critical factor in our future growth strategy," says Smith.