Plantman Equipment

Plantman Equipment is a privately owned Western Australian company, established in 1993, principally engaged in earthmoving, construction and mining equipment rental, sales, parts, and servicing within Australia. Plantman’s clients range from small to large contracting and mining companies. Plantman purchases, repairs and resells a wide range of earthmoving, transport, material handling and mining equipment to a range of related industry groups.

The Situation

The Plantman Equipment sales team generates both equipment sales and rental quotations for customers and leads. Existing customer information is stored in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and equipment rental and sales prices are stored in Microsoft Dynamics GP and WennSoft’s Equipment Series.

The company faced several challenges with their quotation process. Ensuring that quotations were compiled in the correct format, using accurate customer and pricing information, was the domain of the sales team.

• Quotations were prone to contain errors and inconsistencies in formatting; these required correcting before being sent to the customer.
• Quotations were not always approved as per the approval matrix, and the submitted quotations were not followed-up on in a timely basis.
• As a result, the business lost time and revenue because of the lack of quotation management.
• Plantman Equipment decided to automate their quotation process to ensure data accuracy and consistency in the format of their quotations. The automation ensured that all quotations are approved and followed up by the sales team.

The Solution

FlowCentric Processware was used to automate the Plantman Equipment quotation process. The company’s sales representatives can now generate quotations through an automated process, which ensures that the correct customer information, product pricing and output format are used.

The solution comprises of:

• New leads created and qualified, via a FlowCentric Processware automated process, in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
• Quotations being created and approved by means of the FlowCentric Processware built system.
• The information for the quotation populated from Microsoft Dynamics CRM for customer information, and Microsoft Dynamics GP and WennSoft’s Equipment Manager for equipment details and pricing.
• Detailed specifications on equipment items gathered via a FlowCentric automated process and stored in WennSoft’s Equipment Manager.
• Ensuring that all quotations are approved according to business rule requirements via the FlowCentric Processware process.
• Automatic PDF generations of quotations based on one of six templates. The relevant template is selected based on business rules.
• Automatic emailing of quotation and associated specifications to lead or customer.
• Prompting the sales representative to follow up on the acceptance or rejection of quotation. Upon rejection, a counter-quote can be generated, and a reason for rejection must be provided.
• Sales representative, equipment, and customer performance reports.

Benefits and Optimisations

• As a direct result of the FlowCentric Processware implementation:
• Paper trails are replaced with auditable electronic document trails.
• Approval matrixes are enforced.
• Customer satisfaction has increased as quotations are sent in a timely manner and in the correct format
• There is full visibility on all quotations that go out to leads and customers. This allows management to track all quotations via a detailed audit trail.
• The automatic generation of quotations in PDF format ensures that a consistent corporate identity is applied.
• Sales representatives and management have ease of mind, knowing that all quotes are being followed up.
• Centralised solution with a single intuitive user interface.
• Critical records were available digitally, securely, and only to those who required access.