Justin Joseph, Chief Financial Controller at the Motor Trade Association explains that the product and vendor go hand in glove, and that Solution Partners were an equally important factor in the association’s decision to use Microsoft Dynamics Ax. “We placed a strong emphasis on the vendor and their ability to support the product. Solution Partners proved to be a highly skilled and supportive partner that was genuinely interested in helping our business. They did not make any false promises and were committed to ensuring that Axapta delivered on our expectations.”
Company Profile
The Motor Trade Association New Zealand is an association of New Zealand’s motor industry professionals. Established in 1917, the MTA now has over 4,000 members representing every facet of the industry — from repair workshops and service stations to specialists in alternative fuels and outdoor power equipment.
The Challenge
The MTA needed to consolidate financial and customer data into one manageable system that would help it improve service levels to its customers and streamline business processes. It was extremely difficult for the MTA to personalize customer relationships with the company’s previous ten-year-old financial system.
Specifically MTA wanted to communicate with their members new services that were available. They needed the ability to “mass mail” information on an efficient and personalized basis.
In addition to this key need MTA required a modem system that would support the automated billing of subscriptions, handle order processing in an E-commerce environment and improve control over gift vouchers. (Gift Vouchers represented a considerable pool of pre-paid revenue that needed control).
The Solution
Solution Partners based the solution around the Microsoft Dynamics AX Software. The key functional areas were CRM (Customer Relationship Management), Financials, Banking and Logistics. The major drive was to improve the total management and communication with all “members” using the features of the integrated CRM module.
Solution Partners also customized Axapta to streamline the MTA’s gift voucher redemption. The development tools built within Axapta allowed Solution Partners to deliver a comprehensive bespoke module that is fully integrated and has exactly the same look and feel as the rest of the Axapta system resulting in vastly improved operational efficiency.
The billing of “members” occurred twice a year and given the size of the member base it was important to automate this twice-yearly billing activity.
MTA also takes orders for stationery on behalf of their members but passes these requests onto a third party for supply. Once again this process was automated with an E-Commerce link to the supplier. Basically the Sales orders were passed out to the third party but delivery details were returned to allow MTA to invoice their members.
The Benefits
- Strengthened customer relations through a better and more flexible communication system, including customized announcements and other items of interest sent to individual members.
- The new redemption system allows MTA to easily track voucher serial numbers and reimburse customers in an efficient and effective manner.
- Streamlined financial and distribution processes, including automation of a number of financial processes, requiring less time from staff to create reports and statements.
- Generate invoices automatically and track the progress from the moment they are entered into the system. Manage debtors more efficiently through the system that generates reminder letters to debtors and individual account tracking.
- Financial reporting is versatile. Accurate and valuable pre-defined and custom reports can now be created.
