Pentair Water Treatment
Oncontact Software fused Pentair's global network
with CMS. Now that Pentair's entire team is on the same page, it’s
a lot easier for sales, marketing and customer service to achieve their
goals and drive revenue.
Pentair is a worldwide manufacturer and supplier of composite
pressure vessels. Founded in 1954, Pentair has worked to exploit the
new technology involved in fiberglass product manufacturing. By developing
a patented molding process that revolutionized the use of small pressure
vessels in water treatment markets, Pentair rapidly became the word
leader in the production of pressure vessels made from composite materials.
This technological leadership led to an expansion toward larger, commercial-sized
vessels, as well as to other markets where engineered plastics and composites
could help provide improved product performance.
Oncontact Software's Challenge
Prior to implementing Oncontact Software's Client Management Software
(CMS), disparate groups of Pentair's front office were using various
contact managers, such as ACT!, GoldMine and Simin, for their account
management needs. Pentair could only use its contact managers to record
simple information on an individual level with no collaboration among
other users. Pentair needed to replace its fragmented contact managers
with a network- and Internet-based customer relationship management
solution that would enable all users to collaborate and communicate
company wide. For all users to have the same access, Pentair required
a solution with the ability to synchronize data from local and remote
users' personal computers to the customer relationship management database,
as well as synchronize data from any of Pentair's six satellite servers
back to the master server in Cleveland, Ohio.
"Our company recognized the need for all divisions
to be on one unified system, managing a single global database rather
than several strictly regionalized databases or a variety of individual
databases," says Joel Voytek, Pentair sales and marketing coordinator.
"Expansion into international markets spread us far and wide, which
created an ever-increasing need to capture and share information globally
in an effort to best service and understand our customers."
Pentair also needed an extremely flexible solution that
could be customized to meet its specific business needs. Finally, Pentair's
customer relationship management solution had to be robust, incorporating
the many rich features necessary to fuse its sales, marketing and customer
service efforts and connect its front and back office systems.
The CMS Solution
Ease of customization, ease of integration with back office ERP systems
and ease of facilitating global synchronization to satellite offices
and field users made CMS the ideal solution for Pentair. Pentair was
confident that CMS could make the company function as a tightly knit
unit, despite the thousands of miles separating various offices and
the diverse functions differentiating each department. To achieve this
goal, Pentair relied on Oncontact Software to seamlessly integrate CMS
with its ERP system from QAD through the Microsoft SQL Server platform,
which gave Pentair's CMS users access to vital ERP information, including
financials, order terms, and order, shipment and quoting history.
Pentair also depended on Oncontact Software to synchronize
information from its corporate headquarters to satellite offices and
notebook computers of remote users throughout North America, Europe
and Asia, as well as unite sales, marketing and customer service functions
in one application suite to link all departments throughout the company.
"Our biggest challenge was to come up with a system
that would enable all of our sales reps around the world to be on the
same page. A big part of that was the development of our configurator/quotation
module," says Voytek. "We found that having a live, shared
database enables us to leverage our position in the bid/spec market
by being able to approach the customer with a single front. All division
and sales reps know who is being priced what and when. We decrease the
chance of leaving money on the table by presenting users with a comprehensive
history of quotation information."
Impressive Results
CMS has become an indispensable tool to Pentair's sales, marketing and
customer service efforts.
Members of the Pentair team, disbursed throughout North
America, Europe and Asia, rely on CMS daily for access to critical customer
and company information. Almost all users are field users who synchronize
their databases daily with a satellite server. Six satellite servers
throughout the world synchronize daily with the master server in Cleveland,
Ohio, to keep the CMS application suite up-to-date and accessible for
all users, no matter how remote the location.
CMS' integration with Pentair's ERP system has equipped
Pentair's front office with a unified system that provides access to
all front and back office information in a single application suite.
The integration has seamlessly bridged quoting, product configuration
and sales history information, enabling CMS users to configure products
based on complex specification and automate quotes quickly to meet the
time demands of prospective buyers. Updates to the CMS application suite
are automatically transferred to the ERP system from QAD to ensure that
everyone consistently shares the same information. The CMS/QAD integration
saves Pentair's front office a great deal of time in the daily course
of business and pleases customers by delivering fast, accurate service.
CMS has been particularly helpful in configuring quotations.
The configuration functionality of CMS enables Pentair to create, execute,
track and collaborate on product quotations for prospective and existing
customers. Integrating the CMS application suite with the ERP system
enabled Pentair to compile and execute an impressive 1,339 quotations
in just 16 months, which generated millions of dollars in new business.
Pentair uses CMS to assign sales representatives to new
accounts based on territory and postal code, create direct mail campaigns
for new business prospects and provide existing customers with better
service through greater access to service history.
CMS has also streamlined Pentair's external interaction
with prospects and customers and its internal communication among its
sales, marketing and customer service departments. Users and teams of
users can now collaborate with each other on projects, marketing campaigns,
sales opportunities, quote generation and customer service.
"CMS has been a valuable tool in many different
ways. The fact that information is so readily available and easily accessible
is a definite plus for our remote reps who can now walk into an account
fully aware of what has transpired in the past. We are very happy with
CMS and are looking forward to new functionality in the future,"
says Voytek.
Since implementing CMS, Pentair's sales growth has been
in excess of 42% and its profitability has risen more than 40%.
More Information
Oncontact Software Corporation develops, markets and supports Client
Management Software (CMS), a leading front office application suite
that automates the field sales, inside sales, marketing, customer service
and call center functions for mid-market companies.
CMS is a "one solution, one price" integrated
application that enables sales, marketing and customer service professionals
to take better care of their prospects and customers through seamless
communication and rapid productivity. CMS is based on network and Internet
technologies and provides today’s companies with integrated, flexible
and mobile software solutions to meet their advanced business goals.
CMS is a 32-bit, Microsoft BackOffice certified application and has
been optimized to run natively on the Microsoft SQL Server and the Oracle,
Sybase and Informix platforms.
Oncontact Software is a privately held company whose
applications are marketed, installed and implemented throughout North
America, Europe and the Asia/Pacific region.
Oncontact Software has a portfolio of customers
worldwide, including Johnson & Johnson, Sears, Blue Cross-Blue Shield,
Summit Bank and Mercedes-Benz.
