A solid base from which the Brink’s enterprise can grow and deliver an even better experience – across the entire European continent and beyond. The rollout for a continent-wide Salesforce Sales Cloud implementation was kicked off ambitiously. Brink’s project owner Pascal de Jong explains: “We always make sure that people, wherever they knock on our door, know what to expect. A consistent customer experience, that is.” Brink’s opted for Sales Cloud to implement uniformity across all CRM systems in the European offices. “This way, we are able to act based on up-to-date leads, customer data, opportunities, contracts, forecasts, and pipelines. And put the customer first.”
“I am charmed by what Salesforce offers. The continuity and consistency are unmatched, allowing the customer to feel seen and heard. Everywhere! This completely aligns with the Brink’s vision and mission.” – Pascal de Jong, project owner at Brink’s
After welcoming G4S into the Brink’s corporation, the scale of the activities grew, and a new business unit had to be integrated. “At that time, for example, the bigger part of the customer relationship management data was handed over to us in Excel files. We did not have access to the original systems anymore, even if they were supported by Salesforce. Not optimal, very hard to use and act upon, and obviously more or less impossible if your ambition is to unify on a European scale.” After having implemented Sales Cloud for the Brink’s branch in the Netherlands, the next move was obvious: a continental rollout was bound to happen. And with new products, services, and releases on the planning, the need was relatively urgent.
“With Brink’s Managed Solutions, one of our latest services, we support international retailers in managing and optimizing their payment processes. We provide end-to-end insight into payments and cash movements, in all countries. To deliver on this promise, the need to implement a continent-wide and uniform CRM solution became ever so apparent.” – Pascal de Jong, project owner at Brink’s
The project started almost one year ago and is still ongoing. In the spring of 2021, the Irish Brink’s office took the lead. “After we executed the implementation successfully over there, we continued with the other twelve countries. We did everything remotely. There was no travelling involved,” De Jong explains. The team works with scrum sessions, enabling them to start and finish within a period of six weeks per country, with two sprints of three weeks each.
A European rollout is a big task, for obvious reasons. Nation-specific regulations, language barriers and currency standardizations were some of the challenges the project team faced in earlier stages. “Still, we knew we could trust the team to make it work, even if it sometimes seemed like an overwhelming task.” The project team that consists of Appsolutely’s Salesforce experts, members of Brink’s product development team, and local managers, kicked off with a series of assessments, and set up a project infrastructure that allows for a single point of contact per country. “We now also train a superuser in every country. Because of this, we can delegate efficiently and localize the learning processes. Within the Salesforce toolbox, we have come up with a template for implementation, which is in use to this day. The same for every country.”
“The only localized or project-specific adjustments that were made included specifications for compliance-related issues. I truly believe that this approach - unified, yet mindful of the ways of working of the country in question - was one of the big success factors.” – Pascal de Jong, project owner at Brink’s
Brink’s decided to work with Appsolutely because of the personal connection and the human touch. De Jong: “We knew them from previous projects, of course. And generally, I like to make sure I have partners around me that I know I can trust. Appsolutely is a local company. Just around the corner, really. You know who you’re dealing with and they do as they say. We know we can count on them.” The team members made use of each other’s strengths to streamline the process and make the collaboration more efficient. “The project is proving to be a big success and that wouldn’t have been possible with the undying enthusiasm, drive, and perfectionism of the Appsolutely team, a group of people that clearly enjoys and cleverly reaps the benefits of teamwork.”
At this point, the Sales Cloud implementation is scheduled for several more countries to come. “We can already tell that countries in which we’ve finalized the implementation are getting curious to know more about what they can do with Sales Cloud. So, the idea is to start implementing more functionalities, such as registering contracts and online registration tools. And we’re now also looking at improving and unifying our customer satisfaction surveys.” In the Netherlands, Brink’s is already starting to unroll Service Cloud.
Brink’s looks ahead and is ready for future steps. “We are looking at a future in which the use of cash money is changing. We are now developing new solutions for other forms of payment, and we need clever systems to support our clients’ needs and wishes for that as well.” De Jong continues: “This way, we lay out a European infrastructure that makes us future-proof. And if you ask me, we truly delivered on what we promised, especially during the trying times of COVID-19. We constantly receive positive reactions from local Brink’s branches and leadership in other global regions have shown interest, too. A project like this? I’d do it another twenty times. No doubt in my mind.”
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