r2p Full speed ahead with Salesforce r2p GmbH, a German technology company, develops and distributes intelligent and integrated system solutions in the area of public transport. For the fast-growing company to meet its target – of becoming an international market leader in the area of mobile video surveillance and telematics, and bringing about sustainable improvements in the world of local public transportation (LPT) – r2p relies on the Salesforce platform and PARX. Salesforce not only enables them to efficiently manage their sales pipeline, but helps them make a success of their overall new sales culture. Profitability and sustainability are more than just targets to meet for the innovative

company, which was founded in 2009 and is based on the Flensburg Firth. Local public

transportation (LPT) is constantly faced with a growing number of both challenges and

opportunities. With regard to sustainable development requirements, LPT is only able to

compete with motorized private transport if it is attractive and environmentally friendly.

The broad portfolio, which mainly comprises mobile video surveillance software and

hardware for rail and road vehicles, ranges from video protection technology, passenger

counting and information systems, through to fleet management with real-time data

transmission. r2p was one of Germany’s most innovative medium-sized companies in 2015

and has now set itself the ambitious goals of sustainably changing LPT and expanding

globally. Thanks to the multi-million-euro investment from Swedish private equity firm

Alder AB and its acquisition of north-Danish telematics company r2p tracking in 2013, the

r2p group is now a successful, established company with a variety of subsidiaries

worldwide.

«Given our rapid growth and the requirements for a professional pipeline management system, we quickly realized that we needed some professional key account management software.» Flemming H. Kaer, Sales & Marketing Director and shareholder of r2p

Badenerstrasse 125 CH-8004 Zurich T +41 43 500 97 00 www.parx.com

From Excel to professional key account management with Salesforce

The way in which the development, production and distribution of system

solutions interact is a key success factor for the company. «Given our rapid

growth and the requirements for a professional pipeline management

system, we quickly realized that we needed some professional key account

management software», explains Flemming H. Kaer, Sales & Marketing

Director and shareholder of r2p. In previous years, the company had used

Microsoft Excel and Outlook for its sales activities; however, all the while

the volumes of data were becoming ever larger and more complex. The

customer structure and all the relevant associated order and customer data

had been entered by employees in an Excel spreadsheet. The increased

complexity of the data resulted in a lack of transparency and made

managing customer data an extremely laborious process. The consequences

of this were a loss of time, a poor understanding of the data, and projects

that were difficult to manage.

It was no longer possible to work professionally using the previous system.

The search for the right sales software ultimately led r2p to PARX. Fleming

H. Kaer reminisces: «We were looking for the right CRM software which met

our requirements. We then heard about Salesforce and PARX, who came to

us highly recommended.» The most important thing for the north-German

technology company was having an overview and better understanding of

their sales data so that they could manage their projects more efficiently.

Following a presentation of the software with all its possibilities and

functions, r2p was immediately convinced that Salesforce was the right

choice, and the company then also opted for PARX.

Real-time pipeline management and project controlling improves quality throughout the value chain

The project kicked off with a two-day workshop to collect, scrutinize and

specify all of r2p’s requirements. Initially the aim was to implement the

Salesforce Sales Cloud and connect the existing ERP system based on

Microsoft Dynamics NAV (Navision). In addition, an individual cash flow

management system was to be integrated directly into Salesforce. This

included, for example, all resource requests and elements from the pipeline

planning, such as sales opportunities, sales cycles, orders and all related

key figures in the CRM system. To bring together these values with the

payment flows from the sales pipelines to create a forward-looking pipeline

management system, PARX developed and implemented special objects

within the space of just six months. This made it possible to digitalize all the

data and processes impacted by the changes and to make them available to

users. Projects that had been won and the resulting opportunities can now

easily be processed and set up. This has resulted in far higher levels of

efficiency and quality in the company’s daily business. By segregating the

payments that are expect to be received and thanks to the reporting by

Salesforce, r2p is now able to implement a professional scheduling system.

Areas of application - Account management

- Opportunity management

- Case management

- Cash flow management

- Pipeline management

- Project management

- Marketing

- Procurement

- Partner Community

- Quality management

PARX services

- Consultancy / Business

analysis / Requirements

engineering

- Technical design / System

architecture

- Specification

- Project management

- Configuration

- Development

- Implementation

- Integration

- Migration

- Support

Products used

- Salesforce Sales Cloud

- Salesforce Plaform

- Salesforce Chatter

- PARX DynaDoc

- Partner Community

- Knowledge

Industry - Transportation

Number of users

- 27 users

- 25-30 licenses

Links

- http://www.r2protec.de

- www.parx.com

- www.salesforce.com

Badenerstrasse 125 CH-8004 Zurich T +41 43 500 97 00 www.parx.com

A key topic for any innovative company is also project controlling and risk management. By

carrying out configurations and individual adjustments in Salesforce, for example, it is

possible to set up milestone planning, which captures all the important events that are key in

achieving the project goals. Management, order processing staff and project managers can

now instantly access the data they require.

In the area of marketing, PARX introduced ways to enter and follow up on leads in Salesforce

and to carry out customer satisfaction surveys. The Chatter collaboration tool has improved

internal cross-divisional communication and cooperation between the sites in Flensburg and

Viborg. A number of individual modifications were also made during the project, for example

the automated offer generator in the complaints process using PARX DynaDoc. Thanks to the

DynaDoc tool, which was developed in-house at PARX, it is possible to query complex data

structures in Salesforce and then use the results to create documents in MS Word or PDF.

Flemming H. Kaer explains: «If we receive a complaint about a defective device, an offer is

automatically generated that is individually tailored to the customer. This not only makes our

day-to-day business easier, it also means our internal quality management process is more

professional.»

Given its growth, r2p also provides sales support to its partners and joint ventures abroad;

here it makes frequent use of the Salesforce Partner Community as a knowledge platform.

Partners can independently create opportunities and they can access product articles and

documentation, such as schematics, handbooks and similar.

«What is more, our whole sales culture and way of thinking about our customer relationships has been changed for the long term. And we are extremely thankful for this.» Flemming H. Kaer, Sales & Marketing Director and shareholder of r2p

Badenerstrasse 125 CH-8004 Zurich T +41 43 500 97 00 www.parx.com

Sustainable change for the entire sales culture

The team from the north-German company likes to work with the latest technologies and is

extremely committed to moving a step closer to their goals each and every day. Thanks to its

proximity to Denmark, being able to work on an inter-departmental basis and transparency

are not only extremely important for the German-Danish team – they are a fundamental

requirement. «Our employees are all-rounders, who deliver first-rate work each and every

day. On being rolled out, Salesforce did not represent a major obstacle for our team and was

accepted straightaway», explains Flemming Kaer.

Salesforce is now used by more than 30 users from the sales, order processing, and now

project management departments. With average growth of 25–45% per year at r2p,

Salesforce has proven to be a profitable CRM tool. Sales pipeline reviews, which evaluate the

current sales opportunities, can be carried out immediately and from anywhere. Dashboards

are also used to help build up knowledge and create transparency between the various

departments.

Flemming H. Kaer summarizes: «Previously our team spent time formatting and typing

numbers into Excel sheets. Now thanks to Salesforce and the excellent cooperation with

PARX, we can work in a flexible, targeted manner, which in turn gives us flexible,

transparent processes and saves us time. What is more, our whole sales culture and way

of thinking about our customer relationships has been changed for the long term. And we

are extremely thankful for this.»

Given its strong global structure, r2p will in future aim to make even greater use of the

possibilities offered by Salesforce. Firstly, sales support for partners and joint ventures is

to be expanded and additional material, such as product catalogs. Secondly, Salesforce,

with its possibilities for project management, marketing and customer service, still offers

further development potential for the company based on the banks of the Flensburg

Firth.