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Since 1932, the AIC has been the non-profit making trade body of the investment trust industry representing investment trust companies and their shareholders. It has strong relationships with investment advisers, stockbrokers and private client managers who are involved in recommending investment trusts.
The AIC has a continually growing database of members, suppliers, journalists, press departments and industry contacts and needed to support it with an easy to use, scaleable CRM system. As the AIC contact database had swelled over the years, so did the demand on its IT infrastructure. An upgrade of the organisation’s server meant that its previous CRM package, supplied and managed by another partner, had become clunky and inefficient which was compounded by more staff trying to use the system. The AIC was experiencing regular crashes of its CRM package and staff were reporting that customer service was being compromised.
Joanne Ross invited avrion to respond to the complexity of the AIC business needs. Using a technical and business process audit to identify how to rectify the problems the AIC had with its customer management system, avrion recommended a system upgrade and presented the AIC with the technical benefits that the upgrade would offer, how the look and feel would improve and what adaptations may be required to get maximum benefit from the new system. Avrion then specified each stage required to integrate the new system with the AIC’s existing infrastructure so that everyone understood how the process would be managed.
Avrion aims to deliver clear business benefits with every implementation. Having demonstrated a comprehensive understanding of the AIC’s organisational needs, avrion proposed an incremental, product-based approach, which enabled it to implement in line with their budget.
As part of the AIC’s general IT restructure, avrion supplied and implemented the CRM solution in February 2003. Avrion consultants visited the client site to restructure the AIC database to fit its requirements and allow scope for future developments. Once installed , avrion demonstrated the completed system before it went live to ensure total fit against plan. Since implementation of the new solution, the AIC’s ongoing support contract with avrion means that periodic SLA assessments and technical reviews of system operation are carried out to protect against ‘error creep’.
The new system has improved the recording of contact-related tasks. Now, the AIC’s staff use the email composer with a tailored template that has the look and feel of MS Outlook; and the calendar to share meeting information among staff. The upgrade has also improved the level of contact information categories that the AIC assigns to its database which has had a direct impact on the effectiveness of searching across the database. In addition, small features within the package, such as being able access addresses directly from the database, have delivered noticeable time savings.
“Avrion were professional and confident. They knew exactly what the AIC needed, and they delivered an effective contact management solution, bringing tangible further benefits to our organisation” Joanne Ross, Office Manager, the AIC.
Avrion presented sound ROI by balancing the need for successful project delivery and sensible budget control. As a solution provider for life, avrion philosophy of partnership allows the AIC to respond to changes in business climates and advances in technology. This means that the AIC has the right customer management system to suit its business as its operations continue to increase.
