Weitz: The Weitz Company

Background
The Weitz Company is a $1.2 billion dollar construction company with headquarters in Iowa and offices in California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Nebraska and Arizona. The company celebrated its 150th year in 2005.

Challenge
Weitz had nine divisions using ACT! for contact management and forecasting and a “home grown” system for the project information needed for marketing purposes, such as bid requests. Each of the ACT! systems was stand-alone and did not interface with the Project System. Weitz works with many large nationwide organizations, and the “silos” did not provide a comprehensive account profile. In addition, company-wide forecasting is critical, and each Weitz business unit developed its own Excel spreadsheet via an import from ACT! Weitz was seeking a single data base which provided a consolidated view of the account, project information for marketing, and automated, single click forecasting.

CRM Solution
DoExtra Corporation was hired to play the consulting and project management roles for the CRM endeavor. Doextra played the lead in: identifying the requirements; organizing and running the RFP and evaluation process; and assisting in the pilot roll-out. Weitz selected Sage CRM SalesLogix for its CRM system after evaluating eight vendors, including several in the construction industry. The Company utilized another Business Partner to provide the product and majority of the implementation services. The solution utilizes an ASP model with Scion, a company that provides SalesLogix hosting to more than 300 companies.

Results
Weitz now has a centralized database for all of its business units. This has eliminated duplication of major accounts, and the entire company is “on the same page” with a client. Also, forecasts automatically roll-up by business to the entire organization. With the click of a button, the project dollars can be automatically spread based on the typical construction life cycle or by straight line. Finally, the marketing data base is housed in the same system, eliminating duplication and increasing accuracy.