Sage ACTs out

Australian Laboratory Services has reported a good CRM / bad CRM story this week. ALS has “ripped and replaced” its Sage ACT! CRM solution, complaining that it did not sufficiently synchronize data between company sites in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth: “Record changes made by staff in different locations would not always replicate to the master database," explained ALS managing director Dr. Peter Harman.

After what is always described in publicity material as “an extensive evaluation process” (and this time, wishing to avoid repeat mistakes, no doubt was), ALS chose Legrand CRM CORP edition. Legrand CRM CORP was built on SQL, manages account and contact details, tracks campaigns and sales forecasting, and can be accessed by remote sales staff via VPN.

The company went through the process of converting and transferring Sage data to Legrand via an input field in the new system. Harman estimates that Legrand has been "95 percent successful" thus far, but admitted he’d like to see more customizable interfaces to improve the application.