Rivet Solutions is a consulting company that provides dynamic IT and business solutions in a variety of divisions to clients around the world. About eight months ago, Ameya Nisal, a consultant for Rivet Solutions, and his team were called in to find a solution to the inefficient marketing process currently in place at ThinkLABS.

ThinkLABS is India’s largest hands-on science and technology education provider. Since its inception in 2006, ThinkLABS has partnered with roughly 300 primary and secondary schools as well as 23 colleges across 23 Indian states.

“It is the brainchild of Gagan Goel (an Indian Institute of Technology alumnus). He has spearheaded their entire mission,” Nisal said. “ThinkLABS establishes robotics labs in schools to motivate young people through hands-on learning in the arenas of science and technology. They also provide further training to university students—preparing college students for careers in innovative technological fields, like robotics.”

However, ThinkLABS’ growth was being hampered by a very slow sales cycle…

The Challenge: Speeding up a slow sales cycle

ThinkLabs wanted to expand and continue to deliver its pioneering robotics education. Unfortunately, an outmoded sales and marketing process sluggishly monitored via Microsoft Excel spreadsheets stood in their way.

“Every week, sales personnel were sending spreadsheets to ThinkLABS’ head office in Mumbai,”  Nisal said. “There were numerous Excel sheets coming through to the head office each day, and the  burden of data organization became overwhelming.”

“The  turnaround for these computations on a master sheet took one-and-a-half to two days total to generate” Nisal said. “This was ultimately untimely and inefficient for management to monitor the sales cycle. Management couldn’t get adequate results to narrow their sales focus each week, and the system did not match the growth ThinkLABS envisioned in the long term.” 

The Solution

ThinkLABS was looking to both expand  and hone in the focus of its sales and marketing and realized that the missing link was a CRM system.  They needed a CRM that not only had a range of capabilities to meet their current size, but could also scale with them as they continued to deliver their science and technology programs across India.

Initially, ThinkLABS evaluated several local CRMs, some that were stand-alone and some hybrid types, but were dissatisfied with the options. At that point they brought in Rivet Solutions to implement a CRM system that could meet all of their needs.

As a consultant for Rivet Solutions, Nisal knew that what they needed was a cloud-based CRM.

“They (ThinkLABS) have has sales people spread across many locations,” he  said. “What made the most logistical sense for their operation was a mobile solution that is accessible anywhere. .  I knew immediately that Zoho CRM was the answer.”

Result 

Nisal easily ushered ThinkLABS through the initial implementation of ZohoCRM.

“For some employees it was the first time they had ever used a CRM system,” he said. “But after we walked them through the program and showed them how to access reports, etc., they found it  easy to use and within a couple of weeks were up and running smoothly.”

Because of Zoho CRM, ThinkLABS has overcome the uncertainty that originally began the sales week, and the company has streamlined its communications.

“We successfully overhauled their entire marketing process with the implementation of Zoho CRM,” he added. “ThinkLABS has been using it successfully ever since, and I’ve heard from management that they have saved considerable time and money.”

Rivet Solutions has monitored ThinkLABS’ progress since the implementation of ZohoCRM eight months ago, and sales are strong.

“Management has been unequivocally clear with us,” Nisal said. “They are very happy with the changes ZohoCRM has made to their operation. They would highly recommend the software to anyone looking for a long-term, viable CRM solution to help grow their company.”