Specifically, Colliers Envisioned a Solution That Would Provide Brokers with a 360-Degree

Microsoft Dynamics Customer Solution Case Study

Colliers International Builds Competitive Advantage by Using CRM Solution

Overview “The Link application built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Country or Region: United States strengthens collaboration and information sharing within Industry: Professional services Colliers, which is key to differentiating ourselves from Customer Profile With 15,000 real-estate professionals in competitors.” 480 offices worldwide, Colliers Veresh Sita, Global CIO, Colliers International International is the third-largest commercial real-estate firm, offering a After roughly doubling in size in two years, Colliers International combination of deep expertise and a sought a standardized customer relationship management broad range of services. platform that would help the company make the most of its Business Situation unique combination of geographic breadth and local expertise. To capitalize on its decentralized organization and rapid growth, Colliers After considering other platforms, Colliers chose Microsoft wanted a standard customer relationship Dynamics CRM because of its ease of use, technical flexibility, management solution that would give brokers a 360-degree view of clients, and the Real Estate Advantage solution from Microsoft Gold transactions, and properties. Certified Partner Ascendix Technologies. The solution from

Solution Ascendix adds industry-specific functionality to Microsoft Colliers built its new customer Dynamics CRM and saved Colliers at least eight months of relationship management platform on top of Ascendix Technologies’ Real Estate custom development. Brokers can now find and share Advantage solution, which is based on information about clients, transactions, and properties without Microsoft Dynamics CRM. having to search separate systems. And, through Microsoft Benefits SharePoint Server, people throughout the company have the Improved information access and quality Service excellence information they need to make better decisions. Enhanced producer effectiveness Faster time-to-market

Situation replace several, disparate legacy systems Colliers International is like a U.S.$2 billion for managing contact, transaction, and startup, says Durgesh Sharma, Vice property data with a single, integrated President of Global IT at Colliers, the solution,” says Sharma. “We wanted to world’s third-largest commercial real-estate eliminate information silos that hindered services firm. The company combines collaboration among brokers, discovery of decades of deep expertise in all aspects of new opportunities, and market insights that the real-estate industry with the mindset can benefit our customers.” more typically found in an agile and bold newcomer. That is his simple explanation of Specifically, Colliers envisioned a solution the unique mixture of broad geographic that would provide brokers with a 360- reach, technological innovation, and nimble degree view of: collaboration that continues to transform Contacts, including activities and the company. interactions, profiles of target properties, marketing lists, and campaigns. In the past three years, Colliers has Companies, including contacts within a expanded dramatically, roughly doubling company; portfolios of properties owned, its number of local offices and increasing leased, and managed; and relationships. annual revenue from $600 million to about Properties and projects, including $2 billion in 2010. The real-estate giant now contacts relating to a property, employs 15,000 professionals in 61 interactive maps, sale and lease countries. Each of the company’s 480 comparables, property and project offices around the world enjoys autonomy information, tenants, and stacking plans. in terms of business processes and systems. Because of this decentralized model, Solution Colliers can offer clients deep specialization Colliers quickly determined that the across the entire real-estate life cycle and existing customer relationship local market expertise around the globe. management software it had in place in its “Colliers is growing, but we want to do so North American and Australia–New in a way that maximizes the advantages of Zealand operations was unable to our local offices,” explains Sharma. “We are accommodate all that the company had using technology to harness the full planned. Looking for a new platform, capabilities of the organization to benefit Colliers compared a number of customer our customers.” relationship management platforms. “We discounted some platforms early on The IT road map at Colliers reflects the because of limitations in customizing the company’s business strategy, and features solution for industry-specific requirements six components of an integrated and the need for tighter integration with technology platform: business intelligence, existing applications,” says Sharma. enterprise search, unified communications, “Similarly, being a Microsoft shop, we collaboration, content and knowledge lacked the specialized development management, and broker applications. “For expertise needed to extensively customize our broker applications, we wanted to on other platforms, which would have

37 meant having to hire expensive and multicurrency capabilities in Microsoft development consultants if we had gone Dynamics CRM and functionality to convert that route.” imperial measurement to metric measurement. When Colliers learned about the Real Estate Advantage solution from Microsoft Gold Tools to Empower Producers Certified Partner Ascendix Technologies, Employees at Colliers use Link to access the balance swung in favor of Microsoft. information, schedule and track activities, Real Estate Advantage adds industry- generate reports, and manage sales specific functionality to Microsoft Dynamics projects and marketing campaigns. Because CRM for brokerages, owners and operators, these functional areas are integrated, and capital-market entities such as real- employees can track lists of accounts, estate investment trusts. contacts, and leads that match a specific set of criteria that spans sales, marketing, and “Ascendix has done a great job of creating service. In addition, brokers can access Link the basic capabilities that any property functionality from directly within Microsoft management or real-estate brokerage Outlook, and the two programs are would need,” says Sharma. “What we’ve connected so that changes made to endeavored to do is take that foundation contacts in Outlook are automatically and create a real competitive reflected in Link, and vice versa. differentiation, developing capabilities that amplify our broad reach and deep Link enables brokers to investigate market specialization to bring added value to our opportunities with built-in mapping customers.” capability powered by Bing Maps for Enterprise. Colliers customized the A Multiregional Rollout mapping function so that brokers can draw Building on the enhancements of Real a custom polygon on top of a map and Estate Advantage, Colliers piloted its Link then apply specific search filters. Search solution based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM results appear in tabular form and as in five months. The company is in the midst colored pins on the map. A Bird’s Eye view of enhancing the solution and deploying it is also available, helping brokers to better in different regions around the world. So understand a property and its surrounding far, Colliers has rolled out Link to landscape. approximately 700 brokers in North America and 50 brokers in Europe. Next, Integration with Business Systems the company plans to next deploy Link to To provide brokers with a 360-degree view its team in the Australia–New Zealand of client, transaction, and property region. Within the next few years, information, Colliers created connections approximately 5,000 brokers will have between Link, which stores data about access to regional Link systems hosted in clients, and the company’s Deal Tracking Prague, Toronto, and Sydney. To System (DTS), which records the status of accommodate international requirements, deals, invoices and payments received, and Colliers took advantage of the multilingual information about sales pipelines and

47 broker commissions. “DTS reads client and Communications Server to our telephony property data stored in Link,” says Sharma. system. That way, our employees can easily “And, after we complete a deal, all the see when a colleague is available to talk details related to that transaction are and initiate a call with a click of a button.” uploaded to Link.” Similarly, Colliers built connections between Link and the Benefits company’s SPEX real-time database of Colliers International uses Microsoft market listings. This integration enables Dynamics CRM to capitalize on its unique brokers to view and report on sale and strengths as a global commercial real- lease comparables from within Link. estate powerhouse with highly decentralized operations. “The Link Connections to Microsoft Office application built on Microsoft Dynamics SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft CRM strengthens collaboration and Office Communications Server 2007 information sharing within Colliers, which is Brokers and managers at Colliers can view key to differentiating ourselves from reports generated in Link on the company’s competitors,” says Veresh Sita, Global CIO Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 at Colliers. portal. Colliers is currently working on creating dashboards that dynamically Improved Information Access and reflect the same type of data but in a Quality format that people can easily scan. The By implementing a standardized customer company has also implemented similar relationship management solution for each functionality for clients, enabling them to geographic region, Colliers gains visibility view relevant property and activity into business operations in those regions. information imported from Link online. And, because of the way that Link integrates seamlessly with Office “Now, we take full advantage of the way SharePoint Server, employees without that Microsoft products and technologies direct access to the broker application can work together to facilitate employee benefit from the data as well. “We haven’t collaboration,” says Sharma. For example, touted it this way, but Link provides Colliers used Office SharePoint Server as decision makers throughout our company the basis for its Our People application that with improved business intelligence,” says lets employees identify and connect with Janice Lai, Business Application Manager at colleagues who may be able to help them Colliers. “Producers have the information capture a new opportunity. “Our People they need to drive a better deal for their and Link work together to help brokers clients, optimize building utilization, or team up to provide the best service proactively position their clients in light of possible to clients,” says Sharma. “Now, it’s emerging market trends. Some of our easier for someone with hotel expertise or offices in North America have even connections in one city to work with a enhanced their recruiting strategy based on colleague located in another city, if that’s the availability of these types of what is best for the client. Eventually, we collaboration tools.” plan to connect Microsoft Office

57 Local offices in the Colliers network adoption because it borrows the familiar tremendously improved the quality of their user interface and navigation of Outlook. client information with Microsoft Dynamics “Because it is built by Microsoft, Microsoft CRM. “During one of our first Dynamics CRM takes advantage of what implementations, we asked 35 brokers in employees already know about Outlook one metropolitan region to provide us with and other Microsoft Office applications. If their contact information,” recalls Sharma. people know how to use email, search “We received approximately 70,000 contacts, and schedule tasks and contacts, but trimmed that number through appointments in Outlook, they can begin consolidation to just 22,000 contacts. Link using Link right away,” says Sharma. “Most automatically synchronizes with client importantly, the solution improves the records and activities in Outlook so that effectiveness of our brokers in attracting this type of data duplication is virtually and retaining clients while reducing the eliminated. As a result, our brokers have time spent on administrative tasks. This has greater confidence and are more been our primary message when productive. Link is a valuable, go-to promoting the solution to our regional resource for client research.” operations.”

Service Excellence Faster Time-to-Market As Colliers continues to grow, the Instead of having to develop commercial company’s leaders want to maintain the real-estate functionality on its own, Colliers autonomy of local offices but facilitate saved time and resources by using the Real collaboration among those offices. “Built on Estate Advantage solution from Ascendix. Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Link is a key “By building on what Ascendix has already component in our strategy of enabling done with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we brokers in the Colliers network to work with saved at least eight months of one another more easily,” explains Sharma. development and radically decreased our “We believe our clients will benefit when time-to-market,” says Sharma. “For a we can bring together teams of varied local growing company with nearly $2 billion in and industry expertise. Service excellence revenue, that was very important to us. Our requires collaboration throughout the in-house development team continues to company, but it’s a significant work on the next versions of Link, and we organizational challenge. Link is a great are looking forward to the next release of example of how technology can help with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which will add cultural transformation within an powerful new capabilities.” organization.” Additional Resources Enhanced Producer Effectiveness Real Estate Advantage: Link simplifies everyday producer tasks and www.ascendix.com/ascendix- eliminates the need to record and look for solutions.php client information in a stand-alone system. Microsoft case study on the Our People Available within Outlook, web browsers, application at Colliers: and mobile devices, Link promotes fast user www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_St

67 udy_Detail.aspx? Microsoft Dynamics CaseStudyID=4000006936 Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what’s most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success.

For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to: www.microsoft.com/dynamics