Titan Machinery Europe
Titan Machinery’s European sales are set up efficiently and transparently with the uniform CRM
“According to the plan, we’re rolling out a customer relationship management system (CRM) four times within two years — that’s a challenge, and COSMO CONSULT is the partner we can work with to make it happen.”
Mihael Iljic, Digital Manager Europe, Titan Machinery
Company profile
Titan Machinery’s roots are in the vast plains of the USA, the Great Plains, which are intensively farmed. The founders have recognized the added value of good technology in agriculture, supporting their customers with top machines, spare parts and support service; because during the season, when sowing or harvesting, all machines need to be in working order. A network of over 100 locations sells or rents agricultural equipment such as tractors or combines, both new and used. Titan Machinery is the world’s largest distributor of CNHi products. A second division serves the construction industry with compact equipment, excavators and bulldozers. About 10 years ago, the company expanded into Europe, serving the markets of Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine, and since 2018, Germany. The Titan Machinery Europe’s headquarters is in Vienna.
Transparency problem: Each market uses its own tools
European sales need transparent and consistent information to be successful. At the outset of the project there was a desire for a central repository so that knowledge cannot be lost, as well as for a common communication platform. Also, markets could not be targeted or fully addressed because evaluations on leads or by category were missing. “Titan Machinery Europe has more than 40 sites and efficiency is a big issue at all of them. We wanted to use the possibilities opened up by digitalization to achieve this,” reports Mihael Iljic, who is responsible for digitalization of the European business and for smart farming. This efficiency needs to be brought about by an end-to-end sales process that is represented and processed in a CRM.
Partner with global presence and regional proximity
IT staff generally are in short supply, but even more so in the agricultural industry; moreover, Titan has a very lean IT department and so needed to seek a suitable partner for the CRM project. COSMO CONSULT was found to be the convincing choice from several applicants, with effective sales work, open communication about licenses and expenses, and as an end-to-end solution provider based on Microsoft Dynamics 365. Titan Machinery Europe’s strategic goal is to migrate to Microsoft and move to the cloud, with different CRM vendors being evaluated. Together with COSMO CONSULT, the decision was made in favor of Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM because it best integrates Titan Machinery’s existing Microsoft Office 365 landscape and enterprise resource planning system (ERP). Mihael Iljic was mostly thinking about the users: “We have about 750 employees and they all come from agriculture. No one should have to deal with different passwords and platforms, so my goal is: One user—one login.”
Another decisive factor was the digitization partner international presence, especially in Eastern Europe, explains Iljic: “Like us, COSMO CONSULT is a large global corporation. Our project started in East Germany and we were supervised from Dresden. Global presence plus regional proximity led to a greater understanding of what makes us tick, especially at the beginning. We were looking for someone who would guide us through the stumbling blocks, but who would also let us go on our independent way. The COSMO CONSULT approach has been enormously helpful to us.”
Roll out in four countries
Implementation started in Germany, with a plug-and-play approach created for the roll-out to the other countries. A project team was set up for this together with Cosmo. The respective country took ownership together with the Sales Manager Europe Aleksandar Simcic. The first major internal task was for the sales department to collect customer data. Initially, the need for this additional effort was not accepted, but this changed as soon as the added value of structured data became recognized. The next step was the sales process in Germany, while a parallel start was made in Ukraine with customer master data and leads. It soon became apparent that colleagues in the different countries would have to be guided individually. There were language and mindset barriers in Ukraine as work processes changed. A complete roll-out is planned in the next country, Romania, because they already know Microsoft Dynamics Navision (the predecessor of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central). “We have always responded based on the requirements of the markets. Where it was necessary from a user perspective, we started with small tasks, such as tracking activities. COSMO CONSULT proved to be very flexible and immediately blocked out new dates for us when we made changes,” says Iljic.
Azure DevOps, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Power Apps/Power Automate were used for the implementation; some of the programming was done via plugin or front-end Java Script. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales with a mobile app was integrated. Microsoft Power BI is used in operations, says Iljic, describing the goal: “My vision is that we move toward predictive analytics. We shouldn’t just be analyzing what happened last month, but what could happen in the next eight to 12 months.”
COSMO CONSULT trained four to six power users in each country, who then acted as internal contacts for their colleagues. After Romania, the fourth country will be Bulgaria, Mihael Iljic continues: “According to the plan, we’re rolling out CRM four times within two years—that’s a challenge, and COSMO CONSULT is the partner we can work with to make it happen.”
Consistent sales process for satisfied customers
CRM brings the hoped-for efficiency by uniformly and transparently mapping the entire sales process: from customer visits, quotations, pricing, contract preparation, warranties, approvals to delivery—all with a 360° view of the customer and their machines. This means that deliveries can be made on time, which is essential for customer satisfaction, especially during the time-critical season. Local specifics, as well as specifics of the agricultural machinery industry are mapped in the CRM. The standardized data structure is the cornerstone for a central view of customers and for Titan Machinery to comprehensively control their European market. Mihael Iljic sums this up: “The third and final stage of implementation in each country is to connect CRM and ERP, a complete process from customer acquisition to machine delivery. This is a huge step forward for us and a huge gain in efficiency.”
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