London, 14th January 2004 - Extraprise, the international technology consulting company specialising in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), today announced it has delivered technical and business process training to over 150 international users within BTG, a leader in the commercialisation of new technologies, to improve Customer Relationship Management take up and internal communications throughout the company.
The training followed a strategic realignment within BTG to focus on key technologies and to improve the quality of business opportunities for the company as a whole. The key objectives were to raise the competency levels at BTG so all employees with access to the CRM system knew how to use it proficiently; ensure employees understood the new business processes and how they mapped into the system; and ensure employees could use the CRM system throughout the entire lifecycle of an account.
BTG successfully installed Siebel eBusiness Applications a year and a half ago but recognised the need to re-train users in order to maximise their CRM investment. The company now uses the technology in two ways: as a Customer Relationship Management tool to track interactions with customers (the licensees) and clients (the inventive sources), and as a technology pipeline tracking system to enable the whole company to see progress of inventions as they travel through the acquisition, development, marketing and licensing stages. The technology is also linked to a number of other systems, which provide information on patent filings, financial information, scanned documentation such as signed legal agreements, web-traffic analysis from the corporate website and public information on BTG accounts.
BTG has found its employee response times have significantly improved since the implementation, as have its communications with its global satellite offices. For example, BTG has a strategic sourcing relationship with an Australian company that effectively acts as an extension of BTG within Australia and centralisation of the system has opened up the potential for further business opportunities as all satellite offices have immediate access to the BTG system.
"We were very impressed with the quality of Extraprise's training services as the team quickly and easily grasped the intricacies of our business," said Jon Inch, vice president, IT, BTG. "As a result, we can now confidently use technology to manage often very complex client/customer relationships. Our contacts and activities are all held on the system and we can easily track who has spoken to whom so now the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. Also, management behaviour has significantly changed in that the language used in relation to business processes is now based on Siebel terminology. This is a fundamental development of our business culture and management practice."
Extraprise delivered the project over a six-week period. The process involved two days of intense analysis to understand BTG's complex business; auditing users to understand current usage levels; course development; training deployment; and the production of training support materials. A pilot training course was rolled out to 10 delegates, and then extended to over 150 users in London and Philadelphia over a four-week period.
Extraprise worked very closely with BTG to ensure the training not only focused on the technology and how the business processes mapped to it, but also included the delivery of key business messages and rollout of new methods and processes. Extraprise also provided 'train-the-trainer' services by coaching BTG 'superusers' to deliver future training sessions when required.
Post-training feedback was extremely positive with Extraprise scoring 5/5 on all points of the external audit.
"To reap the full benefits of Customer Relationship Management technology, every employee must understand how the system works and how it can make a difference to the business overall," said Ameet Phadnis, Practice Manager of Change Management & Training at Extraprise. "Developing the right business processes and then training each employee in how to follow them can not only improve relationships with clients and customers, but identify further opportunities for business growth. The training rollout for BTG was a huge success, and we look forward to seeing the company gain greater value from their CRM technology."
Extraprise plans to carry out a post-project review in a few months' time to analyse technology uptake and identify any further training requirements.
Extraprise® is a leading systems integrator and business process outsourcer specializing in customer management. The company's "Insight-to-Interaction" (or "i2i") solutions combine data management, business insight, demand generation, and customer management. Clients use Extraprise services to make their customer insights actionable throughout their marketing, sales, and service channels. Solutions are available on premise and as on demand services at the company's hosting centers. Extraprise is headquartered in Boston with offices in the U.S. and Europe. Extraprise is on the Web at www.extraprise.com.
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