The challenge
A trade-development agency relied on a CRM with limited capabilities. With the system scheduled for retirement, central IT had no dedicated development resources assigned or planned. Regional teams recorded weekly activity in Word documents, which the director's team manually combined into a management report.
My contribution
I used the existing CRM's capabilities as fully as possible and developed an Access application to capture the information and workflows it could not support. Together, the systems provided a comprehensive view of the trade partners and companies being promoted across the region.
Implementation and adoption
The solution developed through approximately two months of minimum viable product use. I then trained each regional team in person to support adoption. The director formally launched the system in an all-hands meeting.
Results
Shared operational data and reporting replaced the manual compilation of weekly activity summaries. The director gained a data-based view of regional work and explicitly recognized the change in management capability at the launch.