Case Studies

Project Profile for the Quoting System

Executive Summary

Company

The crane manufacturer is a global leader in the design and manufacturing of cranes and crane parts. Their products have been installed in over 50 countries, with over 84,000 products made.

Solution Description

Customers who do not have Microsoft Access installed on their computers can now use the quoting program. The program requires customers to periodically call the crane company, enabling them to maintain a relationship with the customer.

Software and Services

  • Microsoft Access 2003
  • Microsoft Access 2007
  • Microsoft Access Runtime
  • Microsoft Windows XP
  • Microsoft Windows Vista

Customer Profile

Sector: Manufacturing
Industry: Cranes

Business Situation

The company developed a self service quoting program that would allow its customers to generate their own quotes. The program provides customized pricing and features for each customer. The program gives busy company owners and supervisors the ability to get crane pricing on their own schedule. The program, developed in Microsoft Access needed to be packaged up so that customers could run it on their machines even if they don’t have Microsoft Access. The crane manufacturer also wanted to program setup so that they could disable the quoting program in case it got into the hands of their competition.

Solution

System Packaged Using Microsoft Access Runtime

The quoting program was packaged so that customers who did not have Microsoft Access on their computers could still use it. The simple installation process takes only a minute and requires a few clicks. Customers do not need to be very technical to install and use the program.

Continuing Relationships and Protection from Competition

The quoting program was setup to lock up every 30 days. This requires the customer to call the crane manufacturer every 30 days in order to renew their subscription. This also prevents the competition from getting a hold of the program and using it for their customers. There is password protection setup for the pricing, so that only the crane manufacturer can update and view the master pricing lists.

Self Sufficient

The crane manufacturer was personally trained on how to make updates to the system. This saves the crane manufacturer significant consulting costs every year.