“We had more Excel files than we knew what to do with.”
It was September 2014 and national head of auction operations G. Praveen Kumar knew that a change had to be made.
“It was simply becoming too complicated to manage a multitude of shared Excel files for all of our data. I knew we needed a secure, online solution to manage our deals and work flows, but quite honestly I wasn’t sure where to look, or which platform would be the best.
I knew we needed something, and I wanted it in place before the start of fiscal year 2015. I needed something online that we could learn very quickly, where we could store our data and share it across users. There was a real sense of urgency to get something in place.”
The Business: Online Vehicle Auctions
eDiig Auctions is a division of Mahindra First Choice – India’s leading car mart in which customers can either buy a used car of any brand with a best-in-class warranty, or sell a used car of any brand and receive payment shortly thereafter.
As Kumar puts it, “We at eDiig Auctions are a part of Mahindra First Choice and we conduct online/open auctions for the repossessed vehicles of banks & NBFC’s across India. We have been operating since 2007 and have around 100+ employees in our business.
The company conducts lot of online auctions every day on our platform www.ediig.in and we have a lot of data which has to be stored at a secured place for daily work flow.”
The Challenge: Finding a Secure Online Application to Keep Data Safe and Secure
- G Praveen Kumar – Head of Operations
The primary concern at eDiig Auctions was that their customer data was simply not secure. It was all in an excel spreadsheet that could accidentally be deleted or lost at any moment. Moreover, they were managing several different spreadsheets which made tracking and organization extremely difficult.
“Since our platform is only an auction engine, we didn’t have a place where we could store day-to-day transaction details which was a big drawback for our process. Having been in business since 2007 it was difficult to manage all of the accumulated data in Excel files without a centralized process.”
Further adding to the challenge was the fact that no one in the eDigg division at Mahindra First Choice Wheels had experience with CRM.
“We really had no prior experience with CRM, however we realized at the end of FY-14 that we can no longer depend on Excel files to manage our data. So, we set out to find a secure online application that could also provide us with analytics. Eventually we discovered that what we are looking for is a CRM.”
Selection Criteria
“We had four main criteria that we were looking for in a CRM:
- Easy online access – we needed all of data online, and easily accessible by any of our CRM users.
- Capable of storing large amounts of data – we had a lot of data and didn’t want to have to deal with continually have to adjust our storage requirements.
- Customizable interface – we wanted a CRM that was a natural extension of our business and thus needed to be very customizable.
- Good support – this was a must considering our lack of CRM experience.”
Competitive Analysis
Salesforce was the first CRM Kumar tried using, however he was soon displeased with the choice.
“We initially tried Salesforce but it didn’t work out since they were not ready to meet personally and discuss solutions that we needed. We wanted to customize the CRM for our business and their support was simply inadequate.”
Soon thereafter, Kumar tried Zoho CRM and was immediately impressed by the customizability and support.
“It definitely looked like something that could do everything we needed, and support was very easy to contact and work with.”
Life After Implementing Zoho CRM
“We have really flourished since moving our Data to Zoho CRM. We use a “safe mode” for storing our data to keep it safe and secure. We’ve also customized the CRM for our needs and to meet all of our requirements. Our day-to-day transaction tracking has been very good since we moved to Zoho CRM.
Zoho CRM has been paramount for managing storage of our transactions, day to day work flows, and data analytics.”
What Would You Like to Say to Other Customers about CRM Solutions?
“I would definitely recommend Zoho. Without Zoho we would be still fighting in Excel files, which is simply not scalable and risky in terms of loss of data. Both Zoho CRM and Zoho Creator have been extremely useful for us.”
To learn more about Mahindra First Choice Wheels Ltd – eDiig Division CLICK HERE
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