According to Sara Stewart, Senior Fulfillment and Operations Manager, Logistick’s relationship with Salesforce dates back to 2010, making them one of the platform’s earliest adopters. Over time, however, customizations to the Salesforce Classic framework diminished its effectiveness as a CRM, and it functioned more as a de facto ERP system. Unfortunately, using it that way did not deliver the functionality the company needed from an operations standpoint either.

After a failed attempt to migrate to Salesforce Lightning, Stewart and Ron Como, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, recognized they needed to rethink their CRM solution as they explored dedicated ERP systems. Ultimately, Microsoft Business Central emerged as the strongest ERP fit, and the Logistick team considered moving away from Salesforce entirely, exploring a full Microsoft tech stack.

However, after further evaluation, they found that Microsoft CRM would not serve their needs as well as upgrading to Salesforce’s Lightning framework.

This decision presented a new challenge: Logistick’s Microsoft implementation partner at the time lacked Salesforce expertise, and the integration between the two became a significant operational liability.

“The integration would fail regularly and cause a minimum of six hours of downtime with each incident, disrupting order fulfillment,” shared Stewart.

Recognizing they needed a vendor with the expertise to support both the Salesforce and Microsoft components, the company began evaluating other partners. That search in early 2023 eventually led them to Cargas, which helped Logistick transform its systems into a solution that helps the company achieve its sales and operations goals.

Logistick needed a solution optimized for both sales and operations to overcome ongoing integration errors, difficulties tracking leads and opportunities, inconsistent data across systems, and poor reporting and analytics.

According to Como, the company needed to restore clarity of purpose so that leads and opportunities lived in the CRM and order entry in the ERP. At the same time, they needed an overhauled integration so the two systems could share information and help sales and operations work more efficiently. They wanted confidence that the new Salesforce and Business Central environment could be connected cleanly, without the complex workarounds of the past.

Upgrading from Salesforce Classic to Lightning has given Logistick a CRM with the capabilities they need to track activity through the entire sales cycle. The sales team has real opportunity objects to capture leads, which automatically move to closed orders in the ERP.

“We set a goal of running 35% of revenue through tracked opportunities and have since seen that number climb to 45–50%,” explained Como.

Leadership now has forward-looking visibility—something they lacked in the past. “We have the opportunity, and we have the advanced knowledge that orders are coming, so we can alert operations,” Como shared.

In addition, the CRM’s built-in mapping tools enable sales representatives to plan efficient routes to customers, with turn-by-turn navigation through the app.

“After a customer visit, a rep can pull up the app and use voice-to-text to make notes in the custom fields built for them,” Como said. “They can do that right from the parking lot.”

The rep can visit, use voice-to-text, and update the notes, next steps, and custom fields we built for them while sitting in the parking lot afterward.

According to Stewart, “We’ve gained a lot of the efficiencies we were hoping for. We know when orders are coming in and can prepare for them.”

Among the most valuable features Logistick gained after Cargas configured Business Central and integrated it with Salesforce is the rating engine, which eliminates guesswork and manual lookups when pricing shipments. Previously, correctly pricing a shipment meant manually checking account notes for special pricing agreements. Now, accounts are simply assigned to the appropriate price book, and the system automatically applies the correct rate.

Customer service now processes orders directly in Business Central, where the rating engine enables accurate order processing. The integration between Salesforce and the ERP also updates customer records in the CRM.

“The two-way integration that Cargas built really makes the process so much easier for us,” said Como.

Stewart explained that it keeps both systems aligned while allowing them to handle their intended functions. Orders and pricing details flow from Business Central, while Salesforce focuses on leads, opportunities, and the customer relationship. “We’ve gained the efficiencies we were looking for,” she shared.

Whereas before there was a disconnect between the information in the CRM and ERP, the solution implemented by Cargas ensures everyone has access to consistent data.

“Both sales and operations teams have great visibility. They can see 99% of what they need to see on a daily basis,” said Como.

That visibility is also helping leadership plan more effectively. Having access to forward-looking data—not just historical data—gives them better insights for forecasting future revenue and upcoming fulfillment needs.

Logistick also gained improved dashboards, eliminating the need to run monthly reports manually. From individual salesperson scorecards with year-over-year account trends to real-time quota progress to dedicated views for tracking the status and revenue of special projects, the dashboards give reps and leadership a real-time view of the business to guide efforts and decision-making.