Buffini & Company
Training Firm Uses Flexible Financing to Deploy CRM and E-Commerce Solutions.
Buffini & Company is the largest real-estate training and coaching company in North America. The tough economy has actually spurred Buffini’s business, as real-estate professionals rush to find any advantage in the tight market. As its opportunities grew, Buffini’s older business systems could not handle the load. To improve efficiency, Buffini decided to invest in a modern customer relationship management (CRM) system and e-commerce capability. However, the price tag for both systems was U.S.$850,000, and Buffini did not want to dip into its cash or credit. Instead, it chose a structured payment plan from Microsoft® Financing. Buffini was able to realize near-immediate benefit by implementing both business systems, rather than putting off one system for up to two years. Plus, it was able to preserve operating capital and credit and freeze total project costs up front.
Business Needs
Buffini & Company was founded by industry expert Brian Buffini, whose vision was to help sales professionals build their business through sophisticated referral marketing. Its lead-generation and coaching systems have helped more than 1 million salespeople around the world improve their business, increase net profit, and enhance their quality of life. Buffini & Company has 180 employees working from its headquarters in Carlsbad, California.
Buffini’s business has grown steadily over the last decade, and Buffini needed to handle more leads and turn sales faster and more comprehensively. However, the company’s information systems began to stand in the way. Its older contact management system had been customized so much that efficiency and ease of use suffered. Plus, employees had to swivel between multiple systems to answer questions and take orders. Jumping between the contact management system, a custom order-entry system, and a custom service-request system slowed productivity and the pace of customer wins.
“We had experienced huge growth and fallen into the pattern of adding people to keep up with the growth,” says Jim Polzin, Chief Financial Officer of Buffini & Company. “Real estate in southern California is extremely expensive, and we didn’t want to build another building. We wanted to quit throwing people at the problem and work smarter.” Instead of hiring more salespeople to handle a rising number of sales leads, Polzin wanted to give its sales force tools to work more efficiently, with more automation.
The company also realized that it needed to launch an e-commerce capability to make it easier for customers to do business with Buffini. Additionally, Buffini wanted to expand its market footprint by reaching out to international companies that could benefit from its services. This meant that the company would need an order-management system that could process international currencies.
Although Buffini had developed some information systems internally, management knew that the company did not want to take on the major development efforts that customer relationship management (CRM) and e-commerce systems would entail. Instead, it wanted to take advantage of commercial offerings that were feature-rich, flexible, easy to use, and easy to manage.
After reviewing commercial offerings, Buffini selected Microsoft Dynamics® CRM business software as its CRM system, because of its breadth of features, flexibility, and ease of use. Also, it integrated well with the company’s existing enterprise resource planning system (ERP), Microsoft Dynamics GP.
When it came time to discuss scheduling and payment for the two projects, Polzin faced a tough decision. Although the company had previously paid cash for nearly all its technology investments, the size of these new projects would require a significant cash outlay. “Given economic times and the size of the projects, I didn’t want to dip into our bank account that much,” Polzin says. “Both projects were critically important to the company, but it looked like we would either have to put off the CRM project for a year or two or finance both systems.”
Solution
Buffini had a good relationship with its bank and was ready to proceed with a traditional bank loan when he was introduced to Microsoft Financing. Microsoft Financing offers qualified customers access to funds for technology projects so that they can immediately purchase and deploy needed software, services, and hardware. There is no down payment required, and payment terms range from two to five years, making it easy to match payments to realized IT benefits.
“Microsoft Financing immediately came out, talked with us, and analyzed our finances,” Polzin says. “We passed a few e-mail messages back and forth and did some negotiating. We ultimately went with Microsoft Financing because Microsoft offered us a competitive rate and was extremely easy to work with. The entire process took just two weeks.”
The total price tag for both the CRM and e-commerce solutions was U.S.$850,000, which included Microsoft Dynamics CRM licensing and the services to implement Microsoft Dynamics CRM and build the e-commerce system. It was recommended that Buffini divide the deal into large, sequential installments of $250,000 each, as one installment was spent, Jim Polzin would re-engage and finance another. Each iteration was easy to arrange because the loan approval was in place and the paperwork done. We would update the application online, and Microsoft reviewed and approved it within a day.
With Microsoft Financing, Buffini was able to swiftly move forward with replacing its older contact management, order-entry, and service-request systems with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Simultaneously, the e-commerce system was created using Microsoft ASP.NET version 3.5, Windows® Communication Foundation, Microsoft Dynamics GP, and other technologies. The CRM system went live January 2009 and the e-commerce system in July 2008—just seven months after putting the financing in place.
Today, Buffini sales, marketing, and customer-support personnel perform nearly all their business actions through Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The sales team can track and close opportunities with automated efficiencies, and integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP eliminates duplicate data entry, provides accurate tax and shipping costs, and streamlines the order-entry process. The e-commerce system enables Buffini to take orders over the Web, which reduces the sales staff’s work and broadens the company’s reach.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM was tailored to exactly match Buffini’s business needs, allowing the company to focus on business drivers rather than on technology obstacles. The highly adaptable foundation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM ensures that Buffini can make ongoing process adjustments without major system rewrites. By successfully replacing four separate applications, Buffini personnel can navigate information much more seamlessly, which makes for faster, smoother interactions when on the phone with clients. Also, the IT staff reduced application maintenance and upkeep by reducing the number of business systems
Benefits
With Microsoft Financing, Buffini & Company was able to immediately deploy both a new e-commerce system and a new CRM system and begin realizing business benefits sooner. The company also conserved its credit line and operating capital, and mitigated the risk of “feature creep” that often plagues long-term internal deployments and increases costs. The financing process was fast, simple, and straightforward, enabling Polzin to focus on running the business.
Rapid Time to Business Value
What is the value to Buffini & Company of deploying a new e-commerce system and a new CRM system immediately? “Without the CRM [system], we would not have realized the internal efficiencies that we have seen,” Polzin says. “We anticipate saving between $250,000 and $500,000 in the first year of utilizing the CRM solution. We expect those savings to come both from increased productivity and from tools that increase the effectiveness of our sales force. Since e-commerce went live in July 2008, we have received $1.7 million of revenue from that source, putting us on pace for $3 million in the first full year. Microsoft Financing enabled us to do more and do it sooner.”
Capital Conserved
By financing the solutions, Buffini was able to conserve its capital and line of credit. “We knew that the economy was going down when we began looking into these projects, but it just kept getting worse,” Polzin says. “Given the economic times, we knew that it wouldn’t be prudent to tap into our operating capital to pay for new systems, as critical as they were. Microsoft Financing gave us a new option.”
Costs Known Up Front
Previously, when Buffini had funded in-house development projects, projects often ended up costing more than expected, because “there was no pressure to get it finished, and scope creep would enter,” Polzin explains. “We would end up with new features but at what cost? With Microsoft Financing, my team knew the allotted budget up front and held the development team to that number.”
Simple Process
Microsoft Financing offered Buffini a fast, simple loan application process that minimized Polzin’s time and sped the projects into development. “With Microsoft Financing, we were able to reduce the financing of two very large complex projects to a few sheets of paper,” Polzin says. “The application was short, and we didn’t have to write any checks. The whole process was very straightforward.”
Microsoft Financing
Microsoft Financing provides affordable, flexible, and strategic financing programs to customers from small to large organizations in 15 countries. With customized payment plans, customers can expand their IT spend while freeing up cash flow to get the IT they need now—including software, services such as deployment and customization, partner products and hardware—as one complete solution. The process is fast and easy—with just a one page application and approval in 24 hours typically.