Generation Homes

Integrating Dynamics 365 for Construction Management

Complete visibility is of utmost importance for Generation Homes, New Zealand's top residential construction.

OA Systems worked with Generation Homes by introducing Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement to improve their construction management systems and build better experiences for their customers.

Introducing Generation Homes

For over 24 years, Generation Homes have been shaping the lives of generations of Kiwis by building homes of the highest standard.

What makes them stand apart from the competition is their commitment to a Fixed Price Guarantee and being transparent to the customer throughout the 14-step Build Process.

However, with outdated systems, this was proving to be rather difficult and that's where we stepped in and introduced Microsoft's Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement CRM.

The most powerful construction CRM software that’s out there

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement uses cutting-edge technology to standardise sales processes and provide valuable insights all throughout the building process and after.

It centralises all the various pieces of data and presents it to you through user-friendly dashboards, easy -to-configure reports and additional tools so you can analyse data and get live business insights.

It doesn't just make processes easier- Dynamics 365 CRM gets you more business, improves your customer relations and grows your profits.

Customer Engagement functionality includes:

Sales
Customer Service
Social Engagement
Voice of the customer
Project Services
Field Service
Deep integration with Microsoft 365 (Integration with Outlook, Excel, Word, Teams and SharePoint)
Portals for customers and/or suppliers

MORE ABOUT DYNAMICS 365

The Challenge

When OA Systems first met with Generation Homes, they were dealing with a rather outdated CRM system (Legrand) and weren't able to rely on the accuracy of its data.

"There was so much duplication of information that we wanted to have this simple, seamless workflow, where we knew what the customer journey was and ended up with one version of the truth," says Sharon Pepper, Financial Controller of Generation Homes about their previous CRM system.

"Not only did we need a new CRM but we also needed a new server as our existing one was coming to the end of its life. That’s when we decided to go cloud-based...we wanted a product that was easy to configure and didn't need to be heavily customised or built from scratch. That's why we decided to go with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement."

The Solution

Before we set about implementing Dynamics 365 CRM, we ran three strategic workshops together with the Generation Homes team to discuss the future state they were aiming for.

"Those workshops made us feel confident about OA Systems and made us understand what can and what cannot be achievable.

...Potentially, how complex the project was going to be. OA Systems' expert knowledge made us realise that some of the things that we wanted weren’t actually what we needed" says Pepper.

The workshops also provided OA Systems with the opportunity to understand the dynamics of the business as well as of the construction industry and come up with solutions that solved its specific needs.

For example, Generation Homes' current CRM was heavily dependent on the Accredo business management and accounting software and with the issue of duplicated content, incorrect pricing was a recurring error that had an impact on their margins.

Using Dynamics 365, we scoped out how this could be solved by automating the construction management.

Key Outcomes

When asked about what she thinks were the defining moments of changing to Dynamics 365, Pepper stated the below,

“Visibility was a key thing. It helped people understand the process. Management was able to just go in and view workflows, measure productivity and provide feedback to employees based on the data available.

….the systems have been amazing, and there’s definitely been more coaching and 1-1 sessions with employees and it’s also allowed us to recruit the right talent.

We had people coming in from other competitors and impressed with how state-of-the-art the systems are because a lot of building companies out there are still using spreadsheets.

Another aspect of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement that Pepper said they really appreciate is,

“The ability to search into your database and look into customer data, project information - this has been pretty powerful”.

Adding to this she went on to say,

“As a business, this has added some serious 0’s to the end of their balance sheet- this wasn’t the main objective but just because the systems are so good and it makes everyone’s life easier. We have complete visibility as the construction management has been automated and that has been phenomenal”.

How OA Systems can improve your customer experiences with Dynamics 365 CRM

See what OA Systems can do for you by requesting a demo. This can be based in person at our Auckland office or online via Teams (or Zoom).