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NAMTEC

Customer Relationship Management with Custom Reports

The National Metals Technology Centre (NAMTEC).

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Client Profile

The National Metals Technology Centre (NAMTEC) was established to improve the competitiveness and sustainability of the metals and related engineering industries throughout the UK. A key role of NAMTEC is to facilitate the transfer of technical information and knowledge between industry and academia, to the mutual benefit of both parties. Their work in this area has led to the creation of new industry-academic partnerships and the creation of a series of collaborative research programmes.

By connecting companies with specialist support and advice in the areas of design, production, fabrication and application of metals, NAMTEC has significantly improved the productivity of individual companies and the sector as a whole. Since 2005 they have also delivered an extensive education and training programme to the industry, making a significant contribution to enhancing the skill-base of the sector and improving the quantity and quality of highly skilled workers.

The Problem

NAMTEC operates strategic partnerships with a variety of organisations across both the public and private sectors. The nature of the relationship between NAMTEC and their associates is both varied and complex; some partners provide funding for projects, others deliver services in-kind, whilst many receive the benefits of the work performed.

With multiple projects running simultaneously, and with interwoven relationships between the projects and the associates, NAMTEC was struggling to provide feedback to their associates and record and report upon the critical factors that demonstrated success to their funders.

The situation was further compounded as NAMTEC grew and they embarked upon additional projects. It became an imperative that their fund-management and KPI reporting was both accurate and performed with efficiency.

Records were held in Excel, with complex formulae embedded in the data in order to produce the desired summary reports. This was both time-consuming and open to human error, with individual employees often given additional cross-departmental reporting tasks, as only they had access to the appropriate information.

NAMTEC staff found the process frustrating and unproductive to manage. But of greater concern was the inherent risk associated with the reporting capabilities as the organisation was heavily dependent upon only a select number of individuals to manipulate the complex data.

The Solution

BlackLight Software’s team of skilled Business Analysts initially focused on understanding NAMTEC’s processes and commercial requirements to identify the areas that would benefit most from streamlined business processes.

This approach highlighted the inefficiencies within the existing methods and practices, but also identified that customisation of their existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM application was the most cost-efficient approach and the one that best suited NAMTEC’s needs.

A highly customisable piece of software, BlackLight were able to configured Microsoft CRM to match NAMTEC’s funding and project management workflow procedures. The solution was further customised to enhance the organisation’s data management processes, including:-

In addition, a complete Project Management component was developed within CRM that gave NAMTEC the ability to record and report upon funding, output and results, project teams, roles and responsibilities and partnership values.

The Benefits

By implementing the new system and providing detailed user-training, BlackLight were able to streamline day-to-day processes and procedures, providing secure access to the relevant information for NAMTEC’s variety of different users.

The implementation of BlackLight’s solution has helped to transform and evolve NAMTEC’s practices and following the installation they are enjoying the following benefits:-

Testimonial

Mike Strobin, NAMTEC’s Financial Director, commented on working with BlackLight; “The BlackLight team was good to work with and produced a very effective solution. We manage Government funded projects to help improve the regional economy and needed an effective solution that enabled us to incorporate our project details in the database, as well as record the beneficiaries and the results. We chose BlackLight to carry out the work because they submitted a high quality and cost effective proposal. We are really pleased with the outcome and the system is now in use across the organisation.”