Engineering firm builds sound relationships

An 1,800-person international engineering, environmental and construction firm has deployed new customer relationship management (CRM) software to support its business development, cross-selling and client service efforts. Burns & McDonnell has selected the LexisNexis InterAction solution. LexisNexis recently acquired Interface Software, provider of the InterAction CRM platform.

"The solution's focus on relationship-based selling was compelling because this is what we do," says Doug Riedel, VP of sales at Burns & McDonnell. "We evaluated several CRM packages and it was the one best-suited to the way we do business."

Burns & McDonnell had been using a central database of names and addresses that was developed in-house. It was difficult to access and the accuracy of the data was sometimes suspect, according to Riedel. As the firm grew and different practice areas began calling on the same clients, the shortcomings of the old system became more obvious.

"Cross-selling increasingly is becoming an important part of our business," says Riedel. "Without a robust CRM solution capable of delivering relationship intelligence, it was difficult for us easily to identify whom we've worked for in the past and the projects we were involved in."

For example, the firm often works for large clients on multiple projects that are sold and led by different practice area teams, or in different offices around the United States. One practice team could be in a sales cycle with the client and yet unaware of helpful, strategic relationships held by colleagues in other practice areas that were already working for the client on different projects.

"We must be able to effectively network the client organization in order to better serve our clients," Riedel says.

Burns & McDonnell plans to take advantage of the solution's centralized contact management, list management and marketing automation functionality, as well as other corporate social networking features. In the longer term, executives will use the system for win/loss reporting, market and competition analysis, and to track suppliers.

"The biggest benefits we expect from InterAction will be in the cross-selling across practice areas and office locations—knowing who knows whom—and in tracking our aggregate experience and expertise—what work we've done in the past," says Gregory Gould, a Burns & McDonnell VP and the CTO.