Local South Central PA Not-For-Profit Improves Data Relevance and Saves Time and Money with Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM

CHALLENGES

An Over-complicated, Cumbersome, and Costly On-premise Solution

Economic Development Company of Lancaster County (EDC) has been supporting the success of the local business community since 1960. Promoting business development and expansion, the private, nonprofit organization assists companies of all sizes with everything from site location to financing. Partnering with other local organizations, EDC spearheads initiatives, such as its Center for Regional Analysis and Lancaster County Boroughs Initiative, that advance the overall and economic well-being of Lancaster County.

Up until the end of last year, EDC was using a built-in solution for economic development organizations within an on-premise version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM to capture and manage its information related to its outreach efforts. Amanda Mosso, Operations & Communications Manager at EDC, said that while the solution was highly customized, EDC users found it overly complicated and loaded with functions they didn’t need.

“Besides all of the unnecessary stuff, the system was also becoming expensive to use as our organization evolved,” explained Mosso. “Whenever we wanted to create new fields or adapt aspects of the solution to meet our specific needs, we had to pay additional programming fees.”

She also shared that the responsiveness of their vendor was subpar. The company was in a different time zone, and it was difficult to get answers or have issues addressed promptly.

EDC also struggled because the on-premise solution didn’t allow its team to see what others in their organization were doing or their interactions with the businesses they serve. “We’re big on tracking contact activity—emails, notes, phone calls—and the system didn’t sync all of that for all to see,” shared Mosso. “We had to store and search for data in different places including Excel, SharePoint, and a network drive.”

According to Mosso, the solution also didn’t have a mechanism for tracking and extracting the BRE (Business Retention and Expansion) data EDC acquires while interacting with local businesses.

“Our team had to manually enter BRE information into a spreadsheet store it in on the network drive,” said Mosso. “Extracting data points was time consuming and frustrating.”

SOLUTIONS

Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM Online Implemented by Cargas and Tailored to EDC’s Unique Needs

As the on-premise solution became less useful and more costly, EDC decided to explore Microsoft Dynamics 365 cloud-based solution as an alternative.

Mosso said, “We knew of Cargas’s positive reputation and wanted to work with a local company. Cargas is a member company of EDC and our leadership has always had a great relationship with people at Cargas. From the start, we knew we could anticipate a wonderful experience.”

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM implementation began in August 2019 and the solution went live in early December 2019.

The advantages gained by EDC Include:

• Reliable mobile access from anywhere and anytime (laptop, tablet, smartphone)
• Seamless use with other Microsoft products, including SharePoint and Microsoft Outlook
• Ability to run reports for and filter data according to unique categories used by EDC
• Ability to set up additional fields independently without incurring programming fees
• Up-to-date visibility into all lead and opportunity interactions
• Terminology that’s specific and meaningful to EDC’s operations vs. general “cookie cutter” economic development terms

“The Cargas team was vested in creating an ideal solution for our unique needs. Joe and Allison were great throughout the entire implementation process,” shared Mosso. “Cargas remains responsive whenever we need them. Joe, our rep, has expertise in not only sales but also support, which allows for fast answers and resolutions.”

—Amanda Mosso, Operations & Communications Manager, Economic Development Company of Lancaster County

RESULTS

Streamlined Processes, User-friendly Functionality, and Meaningful Data

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM Online, EDC is able to manage various processes more fluidly. Rather than their BRE process being entirely separate, they now have BRE-specific fields they populate within Dynamics 365 CRM. This enables them to readily view, report on, and extract BRE information.

“When our team makes calls or visits businesses, we simply fill out a lead or opportunity in CRM, capturing all of the relevant info in one spot rather than maintaining a separate database. It’s very helpful to have all of our details centralized,” explained Mosso.

Dynamics 365 CRM has also enabled EDC to customize their lead and opportunity forms so that they’re tailored to collect the data the organization needs to track.

Mosso shared, “We use our CRM to track information that’s different from what sales-focused companies do. For example, we’ve added fields for NAICS codes and municipalities. Dynamics 365 CRM took our data tracking capabilities way over the bar from what we had previously.”

Mosso said that the Cargas team trained them how to use CRM correctly in order to leverage the system and the data inside of it to better understand how to grow their organization. Unlike with the on-premise system that required EDC to pay their vendor a programming fee every time they wanted to make a change, Dynamics 365 CRM Online gives EDC the ability to make many changes on their own.

“When creating a lead or opportunity, we can categorize it as one of three types of business opportunity processes specific to our operations—BRE (Business Retention, and Expansion), LTS (Long-term Strategies), and CRA (Center for Regional Analysis). We didn’t have that capability before, and it’s helpful to be able to establish categories and use our own terminology instead of being limited by the cookie-cutter categories and language in our previous solution,” explained Mosso.

Moreover, EDC can run reports and filter data according to those categories to see when projects within each category were created, what stage they’re in, and who at EDC has or is working on them.

EDC uses pipeline management within CRM to get a  better handle on the process flow of projects. For example, if a business is working with EDC to secure a loan, one of its team members may initiate the contact as a “lead,” and then, as the project progresses, it might get switched to another project manager after it has changed to an “opportunity.”

Mosso said, “Some projects can span a long time. Dynamics 365 CRM allows us to know where someone is in the loan process and who at EDC is working on that project at any given point. The software also enables us to run reports to identify how many and what percentage of projects are in various stages of progression. It gives us the extra data points we need to have a better understanding of what’s happening at all times.”

Another benefit of Dynamics 365 CRM Online is the convenience—and dependability—of accessing the system from any device from anywhere. “While we could connect remotely to the on-premise system via a website to run reports and access data, it wasn’t as reliable as it is with the cloud-based solution.”

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