Stockgroup Information Systems Inc.

Increased Sales Productivity with Maximizer Enterprise As a leading provider of financial content, software solutions and the manager of two of the world's most active financial portals, Stockgroup Information Systems understands the value of information and speedy access to that data.

Key Benefits:

• Lower Total Cost of Ownership compared to previously used, larger, more expensive CRM system.

• Increased productivity and improved collaboration with remote sales people.

• Improved coordination throughout sales team to better serve and sell to customers.

• Ease of use saves sales people time in their day-to-day tasks.

• Faster coordination between recruiters and hiring managers in reviewing candidates.

The Challenge

With a growing list of prospects and customers, Stockgroup's sales team was dissatisfied with the disjointed way in which customer information was managed, and the difficulties associated with the larger and more expensive CRM system that they had previously invested in. The team wanted a solution which would enable them to hold multiple databases, be easy to manage for administrators, easy to use for users and have a low, overall, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

The Maximizer Enterprise Solution

Stockgroup includes accountability, integrity and open communication, within its set of core values, to achieve its objectives of being a financially strong and profitable business. That's why when it came time to replacing its CRM system to better manage accounts, schedules, sales forecasting, and marketing, stockgroup selected Maximizer Enterprise as its CRM solution of choice - an easier to use system with a lower TCO.

The Company consolidated all the data from its other systems into Maximizer Enterprise and deployed it to entire sales force, including remote and field sales people throughout North America.

Users required little training in order to be immediately productive, increasing the speed at which the Company will see a return on its investment. "We have started rolling out Maximizer Enterprise to the sales team and the best feedback to hear from the users is that it's simple and that they're using it. We feel that this will provide us a better return on investment than the previous CRM system we had, which was larger, more expensive and didn't get used much because sales people found it to be too complicated," said Les Landes, President of Stockgroup Information Systems. Maximizer Enterprise has provided all the sales people with access to shared account information and schedules. Now, there is clarity on account ownership even when multiple people are 'touching' one client. And, with improved collaboration amongst the sales team, account managers are better able to serve customers and act on opportunities to up-sell both software and advertising packages.

Using MaxExchange, remote users are able to seamlessly log into the corporate database, access and update account information and sales opportunity status every day - as if they were in the office with the corporate team. Sales management also has further insight into sales call activities and status of leads in the pipeline. In addition to the sales department, the HR department has started to utilize Maximizer Enterprise to manage its database of potential recruits.

Now, with information tracked in Maximizer Enterprise, hiring managers are able to quickly review candidate information, coordinate interviews and save candidate information for future positions. With the Company's phased roll-out, Stockgroup expects to implement the Marketing Campaign Manager module during the next stage, in order to initiate cost-effective email marketing programs which will generate leads for up-selling and cross-selling to its existing customers.

“Senior Flexonics Pathway Growing and Maintaining its Leadership Position with Maximizer Enterprise.”

Key Benefits

Today, Senior Flexonics is the recognized world leader in heavy industrial fabric and metal expansion joints, dominating the industry with over 50 per cent market share. But it didn't get to be a market leader by accident. The Challenge In 1997, Senior Flexonics implemented an aggressive customer-focused business plan and culture, empowering its front-line employees to take actions based on these philosophies in order to increase revenues and market share. At the time, the Company was using ACT!, to manage its sales team but it soon realized that it required something more comprehensive, and possibly something with an open architecture, to manage their 300 sales teams and independent agencies around the world. After extensive research and trials with CRM software including: Maximizer Enterprise, SalesLogix, Goldmine, Pivotal and Siebel, Senior Flexonics selected Maximizer Enterprise for its functionality, cost, remote synchronization capabilities, ease-of-use, integration capabilities and the services of its certified Business Partners.

The Maximizer Enterprise Solution With the assistance of a Maximizer Business Partner, Senior Flexonics deployed Maximizer Enterprise to its global sales force to manage the distribution of leads and collaboration on complex sales opportunities. Today, it collectively manages over 2500 ongoing opportunities at a time, each with a sales cycle of three hours to five years, amongst four or more sales districts and over 300 different sales teams.

Maximizer Enterprise makes it easy for the Company's sales people around the world to do simple things like synchronize data with the head office, maintain calendars, notes and Hot lists and manage user-defined fields. It also helps them manage complex sales opportunities, communicate with team members, assign roles and tasks, project close dates and rate the probability of closings. Most importantly, the Company's employees have improved their close rate by developing, sharing and immediately implementing new sales strategies and tactics to reflect market changes, competitor reactions and cost fluctuations. They now close 72 per cent of the deals that they quote on.

Furthermore, Senior Flexonics has customized and integrated Maximizer Enterprise with other systems to maximize efficiency and productivity and minimize manual work. It has integrated Maximizer Enterprise with an industry information service, electronically transferring data on new leads, then selecting pre-defined sales strategies and teams for action. It also works in conjunction with the Company's ERP system to access quote and post-sales order information in real-time. Now, the Company's sales people in the office, in the field and on the road can download proposals and have faxes scanned and saved as PDF files attached to sales opportunities. They can also automatically access detailed post-sales information on the project drawings, shipment details and customer payment in order to get accurate information for a customer quickly. Senior Flexonics' marketing department utilizes Maximizer Enterprise to develop, execute and measure the results from direct marketing campaigns. By searching through customers' notes and user-defined fields to develop campaign-specific targeted lists, the marketing department can then create personalized marketing messages, distribute email and direct mail, track responses and measure the success of the campaign and save the information for future campaigns. To demonstrate a high return on investment to the management team, the marketing team easily creates reports and graphs to show the quality of leads and effectiveness of each campaign.

"Maximizer Enterprise acts as the backbone for our sales and marketing, providing a centralized hub for the collection and distribution of vital information between salesmen, customer service, marketing, and management," said David McGrath, Director of Sales & Marketing, Senior Flexonics. "When we first started looking for a CRM system, we realized that we needed a solution that had more functionality and that we could customize to our needs. We launched Maximizer Enterprise in 1999, have since upgraded to the latest version and have never looked back. We rely on it as the cornerstone to maintain our leadership position in the near and foreseeable future."