Blakers building better relationships

For more than 20 years, Blakers Pump Engineers had relied on a fragmented spreadsheet system to track its business operations for everything from pricing projects to commissioning new clients.

However, with its operations expanding by 200 per cent as a result of the resources boom, the Wangara-based company found the system needed upgrading.

Established in January 1979 by Ron Blakers to supply industrial and process pumping equipment, the business now has sales offices in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.

It’s a major supplier of commercial pumping equipment throughout Australasia, exporting pump packages to 18 countries.

“As the company grew we looked for ways to automate our systems,” Blakers managing director Mike Kane told WA Business News.

“We started looking at automating all business systems, our sales and marketing area and quotations, where there was duplication.

“It was a cradle-to-the-grave system we were looking for.”

What Blakers found was a customer relationship management (CRM) system – a database program designed specifically to manage communication and actions that relate to customers. Information such as customer enquiries, sales opportunities, quotes for products and services are all managed by CRM, to drive the decision-making process.

It takes care of marketing campaign management and provides reports against activity costs, potential revenues and expected demand for products and services.

The company set out on its new direction in late 2007, with the appointment of WA sales manager Kevin Lane. His prior experience with CRM systems gave the company an insight into how to better manage its growth.

“We could see that in the very near future, two to three years down the track, the system we had at present wouldn’t be able to cope,” Mr Lane said.

“Blakers saw the need to implement a system that would become the base for the whole company, a base from which everything is done, something formalised.”

Over an 18-month period, Blakers selected the CRM package it required and qualified the various vendors available. It ultimately chose the Microsoft CRM, provided by Perth-based Ignia.

“After all our researching with CRMs, nothing even came close [to the Ignia product],” Mr Lane said.

Ignia is a certified Microsoft CRM provider that has been providing business consulting and technology solutions to the WA and Australian markets for about eight years.

Ignia director Chris Nurse said that, through its CRM, the company would provide Blakers analytical skills such as business process mapping and optimisation, change management, assistance with strategies, and advice on best practice.

“The technical team captures business requirements and designs solutions based on industry standard technologies,” Mr Nurse said.

About 65 per cent of Ignia’s revenue is generated from WA businesses, with 30 per cent from other Australian states and 5 per cent from overseas.

Mr Kane said the CRM installed at Blakers would provide the entire company with opportunities to integrate its sales and marketing with all other business systems, thus reducing data duplication.

He said the entire database was now manageable and the company was confident in moving forward.

“The quality of data available to the business now is significantly raised, which empowers Blakers to provide market leading services,” Mr Kane said.