“Moving from Salesforce.com to Microsoft Dynamics

CRM is saving us in the region of £70,000 a year. That’s

a lot of money to put back into improving customer

service and delivering more value.”

Paul Williams, Head of Group IM, Element Six

Element Six moved from Salesforce.com to Microsoft Dynamics

CRM Online to reduce licensing cost and free budget to do

more with customer relationship management (CRM). Working

with partner Zero2Ten, it was able to move quickly and easily to

the new cloud platform. Element Six is confident it has a CRM

system that users are happy to work with and that integrates

with existing applications to add value to the business.

Business Needs Paul Williams, Head of Group IM at

Element Six, firmly believes the role of IT is

to help provide the right services for

customers and deliver value for money.

While Salesforce.com offered a lot of

functionality, it wasn’t being fully used by

Element Six employees. And just

maintaining the system was using up the

entire CRM budget. “We weren’t really

taking advantage of the platform. We were

spending all of our money just to stand

still,” says Williams. “We could do

requirements capture for new functionality

and new features, but we didn’t have the

resources to do anything with it.”

Element Six had also experienced

challenges in getting users to adopt CRM

into their daily work practices. Williams

says: “With Saleforce.com, we had too

many systems that weren’t integrated.

Users would have to log on to their

machines and then log on to

Salesforce.com. Just that one hurdle meant

people were reluctant to use it. Not only

was Salesforce.com costing us more, but

the lack of adoption meant the cost per

activity was high.”

Williams wanted a CRM system that would

be easy to use and would fit with the

company’s IT strategy. He wanted to move

to a unified platform and was looking at

Microsoft Dynamics

Customer Solution Case Study

Supermaterials Firm Frees Budget for New

Initiatives and Service Improvements

Customer: Element Six

Website: www.e6.com

Customer Size: 3,000

Country or Region: United Kingdom

Industry: Manufacturing

Partner: Zero2Ten

Customer Profile

Element Six is a global leader in the

design, development, and production of

synthetic diamond supermaterials, with

manufacturing facilities in China, Europe,

Sweden, South Africa, and the United

States. It is a member of the De Beers

Group of Companies.

Software and Services

Service

− Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

For more information about other

Microsoft customer successes, please visit:

www.microsoft.com/casestudies

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published March 2013

Microsoft SharePoint for the firm’s portal

and web presence. Its front office was

already predominantly Microsoft.

Williams also needed the new CRM

platform to integrate with other core

business applications, including the JD

Edwards ERP system. He says: “Because

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is built on a core

framework, I knew that we could do a lot

more with it to extend the value across the

business.”

Solution Requirements for lower licensing costs, ease

of use, and integration made Microsoft

Dynamics CRM an obvious choice for

Element Six. With more than 20 sites

globally, selecting the cloud version—

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online—would

make implementing and managing CRM

significantly easier.

With the platform decision made, Element

Six had only four months to migrate before

its Salesforce.com contract expired. Williams

chose to work with Microsoft Dynamics

Gold Partner Zero2Ten to achieve this. He

says: “I’d worked with Zero2Ten before and

new instinctively that it could work to our

tight timescales. I liked its fixed price

approach—it told us what it was going to

do and then delivered it.”

Zero2Ten was able to meet the timeframe

and budget set by Element Six using its

remote migration and implementation

services. Working to a defined process,

technical teams in Atlanta, in the U.S., built

the basic system model in parallel with

preparation for data migration. This meant

that the Salesforce.com data could be

migrated and surfaced directly into the

actual system.

The entire implementation was carried out

remotely, including close collaboration

with IT Six—Romania-based Microsoft

Gold Partner and Element Six development

partner. “Considering the project manager

and Zero2Ten were working remotely, the

whole process was incredibly smooth,”

says Williams.

Element Six now has 220 CRM users across

its global business—in sales, marketing,

and customer service divisions. Employees

log on through Microsoft Outlook, which

they use every day. The CRM system

maintains an accurate record of all sales

and marketing activity, customer service

logs, and communication with customers.

Benefits With Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online,

Element Six has an easy-to-use platform

that integrates with core applications and

that people are using to add value to the

business. The saving on licensing costs

over Salesforce.com can be invested in

new initiatives to cut costs and boost

profit.

Improved user adoption thanks to

familiar application. Integration with

Microsoft Office means Element Six

employees no longer log on to a

separate system to use CRM. Williams

says: “People just launch email and they

instantly have access to CRM.” With the

Zero2Ten Adopt2Win programme,

Element Six can measure adoption.

Williams says: “I can see people using

CRM, and they’re using it for things like

forecasting, which add value to the

business.”

Reduced licensing costs. With 220

users across the business, Williams says:

“Moving from Salesforce.com to

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is saving us in

the region of £70,000 a year. That’s a lot

of money to put back into improving

customer service and delivering more

value.”

Enhanced customer service. Williams’

vision is to use CRM to enhance

customer service and overall

performance. He says: “Everyone should

have an opportunity to interact with

CRM in a way that affects what they do

for the company. When we open our

new innovation centre, I’d love it if when

a customer requests a sample, the

innovation team for that product could

see what’s being done. That way, they

could contact the customer to ask for

feedback and make sure that we’re

delivering the best products.”

More value to the business. Williams

says: “We want to do more with CRM.

We can use the authentication methods,

workflow tools, and the fact that it’s

plugged into Microsoft Outlook to build

even more applications. It has given us a

platform that we can use to add even

more value.”