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Aligning six sales divisions following merger leads to better customer understanding

Syngenta was formed following the merger between Novartis and Zeneca, two leading organisations in the agribusiness and agrochemical industries. The newly formed company now had a combined workforce of 20,000 people who helped reach sales of US$6.3 billion in 2001.

The challenge for Syngenta was how to form a consistent view of its customer base for its sales force immediately after to the merger. Syngenta asked Capgemini to provide a sales automation system for its division in France that would unify marketing and sales activities and enable a better understanding of its customers and the market.

Situation

Syngenta is a world-leading agribusiness in the crop protection and in the high-value commercial seeds markets. Although Syngenta is a new company, its roots trace as far back as 1758 when Johann Rudolf Geigy-Gemuseus opened a chemical business in Basel, Switzerland, and since then it has grown into an organisation that employs more than 20,000 people in over 90 countries. In fact, sales in 2001 reached approximately US$6.3 billion.

Syngenta was formed in 2000 from the merger of Novartis and Zeneca, two of the leading names in the agribusiness and agrochemicals industries. Following the merger, Syngenta acquired a depth of experience and knowledge that positions it as a global leader in providing innovative solutions and brands to growers in the food and feed chain. But the merger also presented the newly formed company with a problem; how to unify its customer vision with a sales force that was distributed over six different sales divisions.

The French division of the company approached Capgemini to devise a sales force automation solution for its 350-strong sales team. It was essential that the solution established an efficient communication process by identifying every participant in the sales network, it also needed to concentrate all customer information in one place and it needed to be readily available to the sales team in order for them to optimise their customer visits.

Solution

Syngenta required the ability to exchange consistent customer information between different areas of its marketing and sales divisions in order to gain a better understanding of its customers and the market. Capgemini developed a system that utilised the capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server and a CRM application from solutions provider Pivotal.

Pivotal’s eRelationship electronic Customer Relationship Management (eCRM) system was used because of its “ease of implementation and ensuing low cost compared with other solutions”, says Pascal Plantey, Pivotal practice manager, Capgemini. It is designed to increase revenue by continuously improving on the quality of relationships with customers and partners at each point of contact. It creates and manages Internet Relationship Hubs, which build relationships by enabling Web-based interactive collaboration between the sales and marketing teams.

This is the main application for both the sales and marketing groups within Syngenta France to complete everyday tasks such as e-mailing, letters, faxes and reports. With this solution sales and marketing log their activities with customers, such as meeting reports, future activities and schedules. When other members of the sales team need to access the information they are presented with the most up-to-date information available, thus improving the relationship they have with the customer. As such, every participant in the distribution chain is identified in the application, even down to the individual farmers, and the links between each contact is established. This enables marketing actions to correctly targeted.

This solution integrates all customer information into a single shared database repository, SQL Server, which is accessible to the Syngenta employees through their desktops, Web sites and a number of other devices. SQL Server holds information on over 350,000 different customers and contacts at Syngenta France. This information can easily be accessed and disseminated due to SQL Servers rich

The reason for running the entire system on Windows 2000 Advanced Server was purely down to its performance capabilities, says Plantey. “Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports extremely high-performance servers and has the ability to link servers together to handle larger loads. These capabilities provide a reliable foundation that allows us to make sure that the system is available regardless of a system failure or how large an application becomes,” he says.

The sales force automation system was up and running in just five months.

Benefits

Syngenta is now able to efficiently capture and consolidate its customer data giving its newly formed sales and marketing team the necessary information to improve customer relationships. Using Pivotal’s eRelationship CRM solution together with Microsoft .NET software has helped Syngenta to structure the sales and marketing efforts of its organisation around its customers. This has enabled them to interact via the Internet while capturing critical information about customer preferences and requirements.

For Syngenta, the most important aspect of this solution was the ability to offer its employees immediate access to one user-knowledgebase containing real-time employee and customer transaction information.

“In just five months Capgemini have built a fully automated sales force in which our staff are able to view all necessary customer information that is vital for their everyday communications,” says Yves Postec, marketing manager, Syngenta. “The fact that it was completed in just five months after a merger between two very large companies was one thing, but our sales and marketing staff have quickly been able to use the new system and customer relationships are already benefiting as a result.”

The solution has been further developed to allow Syngenta to set up new relationships with distributors and to more effectively manage new sales packages through a marketing approach.

“From Syngenta’s perspective our CRM Vision is to be ‘grower-centric’ organisation by 2004. The use of an effective CRM strategy coupled with the sales and marketing processes will enable us to focus on growers needs and demands of the downstream food and feed chain by developing innovative solutions tailored to local grower needs and to eventually communicate Syngenta’s sales initiatives directly to the customer and delivered through value-added partners,” adds Postec.

“This will be done by creating an ethos of value creation, whereby everyone in Syngenta has the same understanding of our customers, knows exactly what they must do to create value for Syngenta and its end users, and acts to ensure that maximum customer lifetime value is captured for a sustainable business,” says Postec. “The way to achieve this is through the establishment of a strong CRM capability and globally coherent CRM programme. Being able to rely on the CRM solution from Pivotal, Microsoft .NET software, and expert help from Capgemini has enabled Syngenta to achieve this aim.”

The ongoing relationship between Capgemini and Syngenta will see the two companies working together to roll out this central CRM system to its subsidiary country organisations throughout Europe as part of its ‘Go To the Market’ strategy.