The 2014 CRM Elite

REDGLAZE GROUP: Building a Pliable Platform
Using SugarCRM, RedGlaze Group maximizes efficiency across its network of architectural and engineering companies.

THE CHALLENGE

An architectural and engineering group made up of eight companies that provide products and services to the construction industry, RedGlaze Group is a diverse organization. As such, the company faced the challenge of finding a CRM solution capable of meeting the unique needs of all its businesses.

"RedGlaze had a ton of different types of data, but the structure of its old CRM solution was just too rigid for its needs. It was looking for something that would offer a high-level business platform and deliver value to different individuals in its organization," according to SugarCRM Vice President of Marketing Jennifer Stagnaro.

Though RedGlaze's last CRM solution was able to perform basic functions, employees were consistently "maxing out" its functionality with only limited results, Sean Pinegar, software engineer at the Omaha-based company, recalls. "There was just too much disparate data for our old solution to keep up with, and it was becoming overloaded. Our employees were relying on Post-its and Excel spreadsheets to keep information straight.... It just wasn't doing what it needed to do," Pinegar says. The company needed a more powerful, cohesive management platform.

THE SOLUTION

In January 2013, RedGlaze Group began transitioning from its previous tool to SugarCRM's professional on-site solution. Because the platform is designed to be malleable, RedGlaze was able to easily integrate other software and customize SugarCRM's modules with specialty portals for subcontractors and internal departments. RedGlaze also created its own modules for operations, document storage, projects, and photo management, as well as Web site analytics.

"Our companies have different needs and use different tools, like DocuSign, Picasa, Google Maps, Callinize, and many others, and we didn't want to have to push a solution past its limits to make it work, as we had to in the past," Pinegar explains. With SugarCRM, however, integration and customization were "seamless and painless," he says.

By transitioning to SugarCRM's solution, RedGlaze Group experienced a 60 percent reduction in server space use and a 30 percent improvement in workload efficiency. "To us, that's a measurement of how many more projects we can take on without taking on any additional people. We're able to do a lot more work in a more efficient way," Pinegar told CRM in March, just a few months after the initial deployment. "We're still improving in terms of efficiency," he adds.

A "lifesaver" on the back end, SugarCRM's platform has helped sales and marketing teams streamline their efforts as well, according to Pinegar. For example, the solution populates RedGlaze's photo assets with rich metadata and allows marketers and salespeople to quickly access images and gauge important information regarding building materials, square footage, architect or general contractor, and other key pieces of information about a construction job. "Now, if we've got a salesperson out on the road, he can pull up an image and all of the information that goes with it instantly. In the past, that wasn't really an option," he says.

Customer service was positively affected as well, Pinegar adds. With some construction projects spanning several years, RedGlaze's companies must ensure that all customer-facing personnel have answers to questions from clients; SugarCRM's platform gave RedGlaze the capability to easily retrieve project history data—a crucial feature given the company's extended customer life cycle.

For RedGlaze Group, deploying a new CRM system was as much about improving its interactions with customers as it was about improving interactions with employees. "It's very difficult to deliver good customer experiences if the employees charged with delivering them are having bad technology experiences behind the scenes," Pinegar says. That's why one of the company's main goals in deploying SugarCRM's solution was to create a platform the majority of employees could rely on. As of June 2014, more than 74 percent of the people in the organization are using it and that, according to Stagnaro, is a testament to how dynamic the solution can be.

Real Results

• Increased workload efficiency by 30 percent.
• Decreased server space use by 60 percent.
• Achieved a 74 percent adoption rate across the company.