Sector
Education
Users
200-500
Solutions
Microsoft Power Platform
When Scotwork needed a bespoke capability to generate data and present specific reports from their CRM system, they approached their long-term IT provider Chess. Scotwork wanted to identify sales trends and intelligence for their negotiating skills training courses among clients of different sizes across a range of sectors. To achieve this, they needed Chess to develop a process to extract data into a custom reports area from their CRM system.
The project combined Chess’s Microsoft Power Platform skills with Power BI alongside custom development work, all aimed at enabling Scotwork to harness their CRM data for targeted marketing campaigns.
Prior to the custom development element of the project commencing , Scotwork first needed Chess to help scope the requirement, document the deliverables, and develop the project plan.
Robin Birrell, Scotwork’s Data and Systems Manager, likens the process to a journey: “Chess worked with us to define and scope what we needed,” he says. “They first made sure they fully understood our specific requirement before suggesting a way forward.”
The Challenge
Scotwork provides interactive negotiation courses and consultancy that are designed to empower people and businesses in all kinds of negotiating situations. The aim is to help client organisations boost profits and strengthen relationships.
With over 300,000 managers trained across 40 countries, Scotwork’s CRM system is a rich source of data and intelligence on what kinds of organisations have purchased which kinds of course for what reasons.
Robin Birrell’s role in working with Chess was to develop a solution to create custom reports from the CRM system which would be used to inform streamlined sales and marketing operations.
The Solution
While Scotwork’s CRM platform had been in place for a while, reporting capabilities were limited. This meant it was difficult, if not impossible, to obtain certain kinds of business reports that the company’s management team needed to make strategic decisions.
For example, whenever the marketing team needed a new custom report for targeted marketing campaigns, they needed to issue a support request. This was an expensive and time-consuming process.
It was unclear to Scotwork how to go about scoping out a project to deliver these and other reports needed by the business. So they turned to Chess.
From previous IT project work, Scotwork knew of Chess’s technical capabilities and in particular their custom development and integration skills.
Robin Birrell knew Chess could be relied on take a consultative approach, work with Scotwork at the right pace, gather the required information and put together a proof of concept.
This phased, collaborative approach was exactly what Scotwork needed.
Rather than have a solution imposed on them, Scotwork knew that Chess would work with and alongside them, all the time focused on the end goal, yet fully understanding the context of the business need.
The Result
Robin Birrell likens the Chess approach to a ‘journey’.
“Chess worked with us to define and scope what we needed,” he says. “They first made sure they fully understood our specific requirement before suggesting a way forward and delivering a proof of concept so we could see where we were going.
“By taking the time to understand where we wanted to get to, they were able to map out how the capabilities of Power Platform could be adapted to solving our problem”.
The project enabled Scotwork to extract custom CRM data and make it usable and presentable, as well as to target sales and marketing more accurately.
“Our new CRM reporting capability saves us time and money because it is tailored to our specific business needs. It’s a huge advantage over the slow and cumbersome system we had before.”
The Microsoft Power Platform project was delivered on time and on budget.
By working in close partnership with Scotwork, Chess’s project team and developers were able to deliver a bespoke CRM reporting capability that not only fits around the culture and business processes of Scotwork, but fits exactly with what was envisioned at the outset.
"At the start of the project, we knew what we wanted to achieve, but we didn’t quite know how to frame our requirement. Chess guided us through every step of the journey, gave us confidence and demonstrated value. There’s no reason for us to look anywhere else for an IT partner.”
- Robin Birrell, Data and Systems Manager, Scotwork