It’s the same ol’ story: your business is growing, but all sales data is on a number of different spreadsheets all over the place. You know you’re not growing as fast as you could because your sales data isn’t up to date or accurate. This is how Havator hoisted up their sales process by gathering all information in one place.
Havator is a Nordic specialist in lifting, heavy transport and haulage services for all industries from construction to mining. Their guideline ‘Think twice, lift once’ steers all work, but with operations in Finland, Sweden, Estonia, and Norway, their sales management process wasn’t growing at the same pace.
Stepping up after being let down
Havator was already getting their ERP overhauled. The CRM also needed to be brought up to speed, but that project wasn’t coming along very smoothly. “We had been working with an international partner, who only seemed to do the bare minimum. They weren’t really driving us forward” says Antti Sirviö at Havator. “I had just taken on the role of a Key Account Manager, and I knew I didn’t have enough hours in a day to do everything myself.” Antti talked to Microsoft Finland, who suggested Havator get in touch with Bofor. “After I looked at a few other candidates, Bofor stood out like the kind of company who won’t just push a cookie-cutter solution, but who actually think about what is most effective and feasible for the client. I immediately liked them!”
Optimizing for best results
Antti talks about how Havator and Bofor started the Microsoft Dynamics Sales project. “It’s one thing to sell a product, but we’re distinctly selling services, and we need to keep track of a lot of information for each sales case. We naturally needed our system to work with us, and for us.” Instead of writing new code, Bofor optimized the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform for Havator.
Processing sales data and bringing it in line for all business units and locations has been a major step forward. “Sales quotations are now a uniform and brand-aligned documentation. Reporting has improved substantially. Sales feeds the CRM with consistent and up-to-date data, and our inhouse Power BI expert can now put together any kind of report. Data collection has seen the most significant improvement, and we now have reliable visibility into the whole funnel. This makes running a business so much smoother.”
Different views, different methods
There are clear differences in the operations between the Havator market areas. “In northern Finland we’re big in mining and industrial applications, whereas in the south construction is our bread and butter”, says Antti. “With a shared platform we can now make much better sense of our operations in different businesses. We can monitor production in the CRM, track customers and projects, and it’s easier for everybody to actually think twice and lift once. No more spreadsheets and asking around for the latest version!”
Well-greased gears keep turning!
Antti speaks fondly about the collaboration: “I particularly enjoy dealing with Bofor because of the personal service they provide. I never feel like I’m working with a faceless corporation.”
In the service business there’s often just no room for delay. Antti is pleased with Bofor’s flexibility and responsiveness. Even after the actual project was completed, there are always little things to be improved on. “I keep throwing ideas at Bofor regularly. With our dedicated contact people at Bofor and a shared Teams channel their response times are really fast”, muses Antti. “If we’re putting together a multi-million Euro deal we can’t possibly sit around waiting!”
Antti concludes a successful project: “I have already recommended Bofor to others and will continue to do so. Bofor just keeps bending the system to my will! I wonder if other businesses’ CRM is really optimized for exactly what they do?”
Contact the Bofor Industrial Team here: joonas.juola@bofor.com