Question

Case Study: Hitachi Solutions

Hitachi Solutions is a division of the 38^th largest company in the world and bring to bear the strength of a very large network of interconnected Hitachi companies. from three founding partners to nearly 2,000 consultants, developers and support personnel all around the globe. Hitachi Solutions is a leading provider of global industry solutions and services based on Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. They were named Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner of the Year in 2011. The company provides value-driven services throughout the IT life cycle from systems planning to systems integration, operation and maintenance.

Timing Is Everything

As a Microsoft partner, Hitachi Solutions’ sales team was utilizing Microsoft Dynamics CRM to manage their accounts. However, their marketing team was operating from an external marketing automation system. When the marketing automation system would generate a lead, often it would take a long time for the lead to get into Microsoft CRM for the sales rep or account manager to take action. According to Jon Petrucelli, Hitachi Solutions’ Senior Director, CRM Practice, “that created some client dissatisfaction and actually impacted some deals quite a bit. Timing is everything, and if you miss that window then you’re just not going to typically get a call back or get a response back from the lead or the prospect or the customer.” In addition, because data was being stored in two systems, redundancy was a serious problem. Sales information was being stored separately from marketing information. This parallel processing limited Hitachi Solutions’ ability to analyze data and reach their full potential as a professional sales and marketing organization. The company sought a solution that could unite their sales and marketing systems, eliminate redundancy and increase meaningful contact with their customers and leads.

Choosing ClickDimensions

When considering marketing automation systems, ClickDimensions rose to the top of the list because of its seamless integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. A 100% software-as-a-service (SaaS) application built on the Microsoft Windows Azure platform and built into Microsoft CRM, ClickDimensions was the perfect solution for Hitachi Solutions to eliminate redundancy and track their prospects from click to close. “ClickDimensions is very intuitive and very easy to use because it works exactly the same as Dynamics CRM,” says Petrucelli. “It’s a powerful tool because it allows us to use our native data that’s in our Dynamics CRM system. And by that data I mean accounts, leads, contacts.” ClickDimensions’ data is stored within Microsoft CRM entities, so marketing data can be used just like any other Microsoft CRM data. Reports, advanced find views, workflow processes; all CRM functionality is available to Hitachi Solutions through one platform. Hitachi Solutions’ marketing data is now seamlessly connected to their sales information.

After an easy implementation process, Hitachi Solutions’ began to see results right away from ClickDimensions’ landing pages, surveys, forms and associated analytics. “The landing page creator and publisher is excellent – very easy to use and very intuitive,” says Petrucelli. “The document storage, document URL and downloader analytics [are] outstanding. We use [those] quite a bit.” ClickDimensions’ Lead and Contact profiles show each visitor’s score as well as the individual web and email events that indicate interest and intent, allowing Hitachi Solutions’ sales team to take advantage of marketing insights that were unavailable to them before.

“Unprecedented” Success

According to Petrucelli, the ClickDimensions deployment at Hitachi Solutions has been a huge success. “It’s unprecedented the level of success we’ve had,” he says. “When a lead is created, follow up will happen. It’s 100 percent – it’s double, triple, a thousand percent – better. I really don’t know how to quantify that... It’s just a better solution, period.” With Hitachi Solutions’ sales and marketing data integrated into one platform, both teams are able to access information, run reports and make better informed decisions. Redundancies have been eliminated and there is no lag-time between a visitor submitting a web form and the salesperson receiving valuable information about the lead.

This seamless integration has proven ClickDimensions’ value over the competition. “We gained a lot functionality and a lot of actionable features and information when we moved over from a large-scale, tierone provider to ClickDimensions,” says Petrucelli. “So, to me, that’s a tremendous value. When you’re paying less for something and getting more out of it, that’s pretty amazing.”

Case Study Questions:

1)    Name three different information systems mentioned in the case study.

2)    What are the challenges faced by Hitachi Solutions by utilizing Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

3)    What was the solution adopted by Hitachi Solution to address the shortages of using the legacy (old) system? and describe its impact on the business.

4)    What kind of improvements Hitachi Solution achieved by adopting the new solution.

5)    If you are about to recommend Microsoft Dynamics and ClickDimensions to a UAE company, what it would be? in what industry and why? Justify your answer.

Answer 1

Answer 1.

Information System: The information system refers to the system that is a combination of hardware, software, and telephone system and built to collect store, analyze and provide useful information within the organization. An information system is useful in converting raw data into useful information for better decision making and improving organizational productivity.

There are three different Information system mentioned in the case study that is as per below,

a. Microsoft Dynamics AX

b. Microsoft Dynamics CRM

c. ClickDimensions

Answer 2.

The real challenge was due to the use of different information system tools for the sales and marketing team, so the issue was not synchronizing of data and leads entered in one system with another system. Hitachi's sales team was utilizing Microsoft Dynamics CRM tool to manage their accounts and take required action for the sales department. But the marketing team was using a different external marketing automation system. It was taking a long time to respond and take appropriate action on lead generated by the marketing team as it was taking a long time to record and get into the sales department. This impacted negatively to get the deal from the clients as the sales team was taking a long time to contact the prospective clients. The data was stored in different systems. Due to this, it was taking a long time to analyze data and limited Hitachi solutions in decision-making processes.

So as per the case study, the challenge was not because of utilizing Microsoft Dynamics CRM, but to use different systems for related departments.

Answer 3.

Hitachi Solutions was facing challenges in collecting the required information and data from two different information systems. Which they are facing issues dealing quickly with the clients and close important deals. The company was looking for better solutions to unite the system for the marketing and sales team and remove redundancy in the system.

They adopted ClickDimensions as their marketing automation system that can have seamless integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. ClickDimensions was a tool that was built into Microsoft Dynamics CRM tools and built on Microsoft Windows Azure Platform. It was a perfect system that integrates sales and marketing systems and arranges for perfect synchronizing between sales and marketing systems. Now the system allows using data seamlessly from the sales and marketing department. Clickdimensions data was stored in the Microsoft Dynamics tool. Now the Hitachi company was able to use different reports such as accounts, sales data, advanced data, and workflow processes.

All CRM data was available in a single platform, and the company was able to use sales and marketing data perfectly and the sales team is able to perform better with the new Marketing Automation System.

Answer 4.

Implementing the ClickDimensions as their marketing automation tool that is working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM tool perfectly, made a huge success for Hitachi Solutions. It helped Hitachi Solutions in following up on a lead generated by ClickDimensions by 100% faster than the older system. Both sales and marketing teams were able to access critical information, create useful reports and could have better decisions for organizational success. This eliminated redundancies from the system and the system had no lag time between the client submitting his requirement in the system and the sales team following the client up quickly.