Challenges

CMAB doesn’t actually sell anything, but their needs for a CRM system were getting more acute. As part of their main function of ensuring that all dairy producers and processes that use the REAL California Milk Seal (insert seal here from picture at the bottom) are complying with the in-state and other requirements to keep their Seal status, CMAB inspects the hundreds of producers and processors in the state several times a year. This keeps a staff of agricultural inspectors on the move with physical inspections and interviews of dairy personnel. While the reports of these inspections before the usage of SugarCRM were thorough, entering all of the paper-based reports into a database was cumbersome, time consuming and prone to occasional data entry errors. In the past, this would delay the accurate reporting of information and limit CMAB’s ability to work through a particular producer’s or processor’s issues. In addition to the compliance side, CMAB has a responsibility to improve the penetration of California dairy products into US states and countries where the market share is low. This is typically done with co-branded events in trade shows, specialty shops, and grocery store chains that have significant operations outside of California. While these campaigns seem successful, all of the success is more anecdotal since CMAB could not directly correlate a campaign with improved sales in a particular region.

Solutions

Arcsona worked with both SugarCRM and the client to build a unique CRM solution that:

• Allows inspectors to work in the field and enter all of their inspection notices on the mobile application within SugarCRM. While we did have to create some custom objects for this deployment, we were able to weave them in well with standard objects and present a complete system. This was deployed with the standard SugarCRM mobile application and now all data is entered correctly during the inspection process—no long delay with potential for data entry errors later.

• Manages extra-California campaigns and compares the activities to before and after sales data for the locality in question. Now CMAB can gage the effectiveness of its penetration campaigns by looking at all relevant product sales data before and after an event and draw a more direct correlation to its efforts. In this way, CMAB will know what is working and what is not, especially in bulk or far away markets like China and Japan.

Results

The paper is GONE! There are no more paper-based inspection reports, and adoption by all inspectors is 100%. CMAB has a real, succinct solution that provides immediate feedback from the inspection process and allows for quick action of there are issues with its dairy members.In addition, CMAB now knows what is working in its efforts to expand the Seal product base in distant geographies. It can stop wasting time and money in campaigns that are not moving the needle and expand on those campaigns that are truly making a difference.