Building a Stronger Business with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales CRM & Power BI

CHALLENGES

A Cumbersome CRM and Short-Sighted Business Insights

According to Stuart Smith, Benchmark’s Vice President of Market Growth, the company struggled with an overly-complicated, cumbersome CRM. Benchmark Construction purchased the solution nearly a decade ago, unaware it was too complex for their particular needs. As a service company, Benchmark didn’t need much of the inherent functionality in the system.

“We went from using informal excel sheets to a complicated system that was way more than what was needed,” shared Smith. “We held onto it for a long time, and it existed through three VPs of Marketing, all of whom put their stamp on it. It became a Frankenstein’s monster of sorts — all kinds of things patched together — and didn’t accomplish much.”

Smith explained the difficulties of entering information into the system. “Every time we’d go into it, we had to think, ‘How do I do this?’ It involved a lot of clicking, and the user screens had many things we didn’t use — lots of noise.”

Benchmark’s previous CRM also required extra manual effort when forecasting month-by-month project revenue. Smith’s business development team entered estimated monthly revenues into the system for upcoming contracted projects based on their projected start and completion dates. The system didn’t automatically adjust the monthly forecasts to reflect the new project timelines if delays occurred.

“If for whatever reason a project was pushed out, we had to manually re-plug the information into the system,” said Smith.

Smith also shared that Benchmark’s previous CRM had no effective dashboards to help him monitor forecasted vs. actual financial data.

“The solution wasn’t working for a variety of reasons, and we needed to make a change. People weren’t using it because we had to jump through hoops to make it do what we needed it to,” Smith explained.

However, the company was busy, and they never had enough time to figure out how to improve the system or look for alternatives.

That changed with the COVID pandemic. The industry slowed down during the spring and summer of 2020, so Smith and others at Benchmark began to research their options.

SOLUTIONS

Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM for Sales Plus Power BI

Initially, Benchmark intended to find a consultant who could help adapt the existing software solution to meet the company’s needs.

“We reached out to our existing provider but didn’t feel we were getting the support we needed. They had a big corporate feel, and we wanted someone willing to listen and work with us,” Smith said.

Smith informally knew of Cargas — through cycling trips with Cargas founder Chip Cargas and his son (now Vice President of Marketing and Product Development) Aaron.

After learning about Benchmark’s pain points with its existing CRM and what the company wished to accomplish, Cargas’s CRM sales manager suggested Smith consider Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and Power BI.

“Over the course of five or six meetings, we were able to home in on what we needed. We discussed what information makes a difference and determined what the system needed to do. Cargas understood that in addition to the CRM functionality, it was important to have forecasting capabilities built-in.”

—Stuart Smith, Vice President of Market Growth at Benchmark

Implementation began in early 2021 and the solution went live in May that year.

Highlights of Benchmark Construction’s Dynamics 365 CRM and Power BI Solution:

• Cloud-based software accessible in real-time to all users at all locations
• Dynamic reporting capabilities and deeper data insights
• An intuitive solution meeting the needs of Benchmark’s CEO, President, and the company’s executive leadership, accounting, and business development teams
• Local, responsive software support

BENEFITS

Expanded Business Forecasting and Decision-Making Capabilities via Centralized, Streamlined Data

The Cargas solution has given Benchmark better long-term visibility. They can more effectively assess the influx of projects coming the company’s way and predict future financial performance and staffing needs.

“With our former solution, we didn’t have good headlights on what was coming our way. We could see about four months out, but when predicting beyond that — trying to do planning even a year out — our headlights were dim,” explained Smith.

Now, Power BI extracts and centralizes sales data from the CRM and recorded revenue data from accounting’s Excel files. All data is in one place, and Cargas set up a powerful “Work in Progress and Opportunities” Power BI dashboard that readily lets Smith and others see information in a meaningful and actionable way.

Smith explained, “With everything front and center, it has opened the doors to thinking about what other metrics we might track for better business planning.”

Moreover, the Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM’s easy-to-navigate interface allows Benchmark users to drill down into individual project information and get a clear picture of what’s happening. It doesn’t have the “noise” their former system had.

“It’s really intuitive and works well for our team. We had no user confidence in the old system. But with this, we could start fresh and think through every step of the process.” Smith shared. “That built confidence and people embraced it.”

From the smooth handoff from Cargas’s sales team to its operations group for implementation to its Power BI engineer and analyst, Smith said he felt well-supported throughout the entire process. He said Cargas involved the right experts at each stage.

“They made sure they understood our business and developed a solution in response to that. They didn’t try to fit us into some sort of out-of-the-box solution. They built something that works for us,” said Smith. “The experience working with Cargas was awesome.”

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