Customer Testimonial
SRA International, Inc.
Costpoint CRM Powers Business Development Processes for Leading Aerospace and Defense Contractor
The Challenge
SRA International is dedicated to solving complex problems of global significance for clients in national security, civil government and global health. With three decades serving these clients, SRA delivers the expert knowledge, technical tools and trusted solutions for missions that matter – to SRA, their clients and the world. Recognized as one of Fortune Magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" for ten consecutive years, SRA has a proven track record of success.
Prior to May 2007, SRA was using Microsoft Access databases in conjunction with over 30 home-grown systems scattered across multiple business units to manage their business development activities. As the business grew, the old system could not accurately track activities across the business, and it could not generate consolidated reports that management needed to make sales and marketing decisions. As a result, SRA felt that potential opportunities were getting lost along the way. In addition, the old solution did not offer visibility into data that was requested as part of the audit process, and it was not easy to configure the system as the needs of the organization changed.
Due to SRA's evolving business development requirements, the company decided it needed one centralized marketing and sales database that could automate all facets of its business development process to power its growth as a billion dollar organization.
The Solution
SRA embarked on an extensive vendor selection effort to find the right business development solution that matched their needs. The company evaluated multiple software solutions but ultimately selected Costpoint CRM. In addition to offering the best combination of functional breadth and depth, Costpoint CRM provided the tight data security and license-based pricing model that SRA wanted. SRA did not believe that commercially available CRM tools offered in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model offered the right level of data security or the long-term payback that Costpoint CRM could provide. Costpoint CRM also offered seamless integration to Deltek Costpoint, SRA's back-office project accounting system.
After going live on the solution, SRA began using most of the key functionality within Costpoint CRM to unify their business development activities. In particular, SRA leveraged the system to fully manage their business capture process, and they used the marketing campaign functionality to develop, manage, and measure their marketing campaigns. By linking campaign and capture processes in one system, SRA could directly assess the effectiveness of their marketing spend – including their bid and proposal dollars (B&P) – leading to better decisions in the future.
"Costpoint CRM is our business development traffic cop," said Michael Fox, SVP Corporate Strategic Development. "It is the tool we use to enforce compliance with our capture process and to manage our marketing campaigns. Costpoint CRM provides the centralized backbone we need to be effective, and it helps us respond to internal data requests and external audits."
SRA also uses Costpoint CRM as a planning tool to evaluate potential opportunities and to make future investment decisions. The company leverages the solution to generate B&P projections and allocations, and it regularly uses Costpoint CRM to predict future hiring, staffing and training needs, based on the pipeline and forecasted win rates. Due to the intelligence contained within the solution, Costpoint CRM is a core driver of management decision-making at the highest levels. "We use the key information that Costpoint CRM gives us to make board-level decisions about where to take the company and what type of opportunities we should pursue," Fox added.
The Benefit
After using the solution for over two years, SRA has identified numerous benefits from Costpoint CRM – most notably improvements in data completeness and accuracy, cost savings, and revenue growth.
Costpoint CRM has enabled SRA to have accurate data on all facets of their business development process. The prior system captured roughly 50% of the total pipeline. Now, every lead is entered and tracked, and only leads in the pipeline get budget ensuring that marketing dollars are spent wisely. The prior system could not produce a total opportunity pipeline report. Now, Costpoint CRM provides an instantaneous pipeline view. In the past, it took two weeks to compile win rates. With Costpoint CRM, win rates can be calculated in under an hour.
In addition to quantum improvements in tracking and measurement, Costpoint CRM led to cost savings throughout the organization. The use of Costpoint CRM allowed SRA to retire the 30+ systems leading to reduced maintenance and development costs that were necessary to keep the old systems functioning properly. With the new solution, SRA has been able to shift 3-5 full-time employees to value-added functions since Costpoint CRM only requires one full-time administrator.
Finally, Costpoint CRM led to revenue improvements for the company. SRA has estimated their win rate has improved 21% since using the solution. The improvement in win rate has contributed to SRA growing from a $1.3B organization to one with revenues of over $1.6B while using the solution.
"Costpoint CRM has significantly improved the process of capturing, analyzing, and accurately reporting on important business development metrics and is key to proactively managing our operational performance and maintaining our competitive edge," Fox concluded. "It has surpassed our already lofty expectations and is a key contributor to our growth as a company."About SRA International, Inc
Overview: SRA and its subsidiaries are dedicated to solving complex problems of global significance for government organizations serving the national security, civil government and global health markets. Founded in 1978, the company and its subsidiaries have expertise in such areas as air surveillance and air traffic management; contract research organization (CRO) services; cybersecurity; disaster response planning; enterprise resource planning; environmental strategies; IT systems, infrastructure and managed services; logistics; public health preparedness; strategic management consulting; systems engineering; and wireless integration.
Headquarters: Fairfax, VA
