Flying High with Sage

Overview

Since 1996, Flags Unlimited Corporation has been producing flags and serving customers all over Canada and the United States. What started as a family business quickly resurrected into becoming North America's leading manufacturer of national flags, custom flags, custom banners and flagpoles. Flags Unlimited has been using Sage to improve their marketing campaigns, increase efficiencies, and drive growth.

Key Outcomes

• Improvement in time efficiency and quality of data
• Reduction in points of data entry 
• Improved communication across departments
• Opportunities to further streamline policies and procedures
• Fully integrated custom design Marketing Email Campaign solution

Challenge

Continued growth and feedback from across the company made it clear that Flags Unlimited needed a new CRM solution. The previous system in place was dated, slow, and the integration with other systems was a painful process. Flags Unlimited needed something that was web-based, using a technology that they could grow into. They also needed a solution that would easily integrate with their current systems.

"We were running an old Accpac system so we needed to upgrade. We decided to condense all our systems, so we spoke to BAASS about upgrading and they called out Sage as a potential fit." - James McKinnon, IT & Operations Specialist

Solution

A focus internally was creating a solution that allowed their sales team to manage the customer from beginning to end, all via a web-based interface. Some other drivers in the decision for investing in a new solution included:

• Elimination of duplicate data entry
• Ability to focus more intelligently and efficiently 
• Improved quality of data and speed 

Outcome

Their sales team is now able to see at-a-glance how they are performing and what improvements can be made: "The ability to build custom reports and integrate seamlessly was awesome. By way of example, I can create a report, using the dashboard feature which brings account data and invoice information together. I set up a link that connects to our telephone system, which logs all calls made and injects the information as communications into the CRM. For sales representatives, it means they can easily manage all calls to customers." 

All communications to and from customers come from information held in Sage CRM and Sage 300. James and the team at Flags Unlimited feel confident that they are working off and making decisions based on up-to-date and accurate information. Previously, they struggled to manage data quality but "are in a much better position now thanks to Sage."