“Introstat was using an old version of Maximizer, and over the years we needed more and more out of a CRM system. We looked at the likes of Salesforce and Microsoft. Ultimately, we made the decision to stay with Maximizer, but move to the newest version. And it’s been interesting for me because I’ve had hands-on experience with both. I feel fortunate that we stayed with Maximizer.”

Nicola Warburton
Introstat – South Africa

Background

Introstat was founded in 1989 and has grown to become a leading managed IT solutions provider in South Africa. As a long-time Maximizer customer, Introstat has used Maximizer’s CRM software to manage over 40,000 customers and a sales force that thrives in a highly competitive market. From consumables to turnkey managed services to service and repair, Introstat serves the South African market from its offices and distribution centres in Johannesburg (head office), Cape Town and Durban. Introstat has 150 employees and over 80 Maximizer users.

Nicola Warburton, Special Projects Consultant at Introstat, has a unique perspective on Introstat. Over the past 19 years at the company, she has worked in sales administration and marketing and, most recently, was responsible for the company’s transition to the latest cloud version of Maximizer CRM.

Camsoft Solutions, based in Cape Town, South Africa is a Maximizer Partner and played a key role in Introstat’s upgrade to Maximizer’s Cloud version.

Challenges

Over the years, three distinct challenges emerged for Introstat’s CRM needs.

First, as the company expanded to three cities, their Maximizer installations also multiplied. However, they were not connected. Each office had its own Maximizer database. This resulted in “dirty” data accumulating over the years due to the inconsistent use of stock and custom fields. Other challenges were that offices were not able to easily collaborate on national accounts and there was no company-wide view of sales performance available on-demand.

The second challenge involves generating quotes. Introstat’s supplies business is focussed on fast moving goods and their sales teams needed to be able to quote quickly and accurately. With eleven key suppliers, salespeople had to call or manually search documents for stock levels and current pricing before assembling a quote. Introstat needed a better approach.

Finally, the business simply outgrew the older client-server versions of Maximizer. As Maximizer modernized its software, Introstat started looking at ways to do the same.