Tullis Russell - Sage CRM Case Study

The client

The Tullis Russell Group are a leading, papermaking, specialist coating and converting company based in Fife Scotland who have served customers in the industry for over two centuries.  As a truly global company they have gained the reputation of being leaders in the varied industries within which they operate. 

The Cheshire based Tullis Russell Coaters (TRC) division are a key part of the growth engine for the group manufacturing textile transfer papers, security papers, such as stamps and visa, and label papers to a niche marketplace. Their aim of maintaining brand excellence ensures that there is a commitment to ensuring that the workforce is well informed of customers’ requirements and expectations and those systems, procedures and key performance indicators are in place to drive positive customer focus. 

The problem

In order to build on current success in their niche marketplace, they needed to maximize every sales opportunity generated from sales and marketing initiatives and ensure that they were in a position to optimize sales conversions. 
Marketing Manager, Darbyshire explains, “We had no central database for customer information and we knew that we needed to exploit opportunities using our internal customer data more effectively.” 

Disparate systems for storing customer and product information

Sage CRMCustomer and product information were stored in many different places which included the internal legacy system, databases, hardcopy paper files, business cards and visit reports to name a few. As Frances explains, “There was no real process for capturing customer and product information except in our legacy database which tended to be focussed on capturing current customer orders to enable us to bill them. For example, it was not easy to log and keep sight of opportunities which might have arisen from more general enquiries and sample tracking. We had no real up to date data.”

Customer data was not easily accessible and therefore not fully exploited

There was no formalised structure for capturing data from customers, prospects and suppliers. Valuable leads were not being fully exploited and valuable customer input, captured in customer surveys for example, could not easily be shared across the organization. There was a clear need for a more rigorous and controlled method of capturing communications and a central area to easily access all customer information.

The Solution

TRC evaluated a number of competing CRM systems before opting for Sage CRM. They wanted an off-the-shelf package to implement internally, which was functionally rich, customisable, easy and flexible to use. Sage CRM offered excellent value for money and fit the bill perfectly.

TRC chose a phased approach to implementation to allow them to adopt a number of new processes internally. They trialed and piloted the system before going live within the whole business.

“We wanted to introduce the system simply and initially we wanted to use it as a tool to help every sales manager to chase every opportunity and every lead using an up-to-date centralised database. For me, the fact that we could roll Sage CRM out in stages, so allowing us to take the opportunity to streamline our internal processes and start using various bits of the functionality as and when we were ready to, has been strength of the Sage CRM offering.”

While Sage CRM is an off the shelf system, making it an affordable investment for a wide range of businesses, it also allows each individual customer to configure it to meet their individual business needs. Darbyshire explains, “We modified database structures and revised our sales workflows to meet the business needs. We wanted to make sure that we were servicing existing customers as effectively as we could because we realised that there was additional business which we could win from our existing customer base.”

Commenting on the success of the implementation Darbyshire says, “We have had regular meetings with Onesys who have been able to support us during the implementation and training phase. But because Sage is quite intuitive we have found it very easy to adopt internally. We rolled it out gradually to our various sales, marketing and customer service teams.”

The Benefits

Tullis Russell are clear on the benefits which Sage CRM has given the company, “We now have a central system for all our sales contact data which is now clean and actionable. It’s given us a clear picture of all our current and potential leads. Having that visibility ensures that our sales team are able to chase every available new opportunity more actively and follow leads up effectively because they’ve got a system that reminds them when to do that. As an example, we have just invested in two major exhibitions and we have been able to input all the leads into the system and allocate those leads with dates to follow-up those opportunities. We’ve been able to customise Sage CRM using workflows to ensure that every opportunity is contacted three times.  Where we can see that there is a potential opportunity in the future, we can schedule in a follow-up”.

“In addition our sales team now have valuable data to ensure we understand the reasons why we are unable to convert certain leads. Equally, where our product is unable to meet a particular requirement we can now identify new product development opportunities which we may want to feed through to our technical team to help develop our business.”

 “What CRM has done has highlighted the importance internally of capturing every opportunity and recording all the details. Our staff have commented on how it is helping them to do their job because the system is reminding them when to chase opportunities and helping them close more business.”

“We are now able to qualify a customer effectively, and track the process of converting opportunities to sales. This is helping us to better quantify how long it has taken and how much it has cost to convert leads. Future plans include starting to use the campaign management to check ROI on our marketing initiatives.”

When asked what were some of the key factors which influenced their decision to adopt Sage CRM, “We received a lot of helpful advice from Onesys in the early stages which helped us decide on the best solution. They made a very positive contribution to the system evaluation process and recommended Sage CRM. Although we did assess other options, their knowledge of our business, in particular our ERP system, and their support during the implementation and training phase has been very beneficial. It has saved us time and money and allowed us to implement very quickly.”

The clear benefits of the system at Tullis Russell Coaters has resulted in a second implementation within the group at their Paper Makers division.