Maas & Kleiberg Subsidieadvies

With Salesforce, we can accelerate the innovation roadmap to help drive greater growth and competitive advantage.”

-Willem Maas
 

Simplifying grant applications and increasing sales conversion with integration, automation, and collaboration

From building drones to developing robots for the care industry, Maas & Kleiberg helps innovative companies secure the government funding they need to realise their ideas and growth ambitions. Maas & Kleiberg doesn't just simplify the grant application process; it helps organisations secure around 20% more funding through its expert knowledge.

“Since we were founded in 2009, we’ve helped more than 1,000 companies win grants and subsidies,” said Willem Maas, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Maas & Kleiberg. “Our aim is to have a 2,000-strong client base and be the market leader by 2022.”

To achieve its growth ambitions, Maas & Kleiberg needed to rethink how it engaged with the 20,000-plus prospects across the Netherlands. Although the company had progressed from spreadsheets to a custom-built CRM system, poor functionality was holding it back. “We didn’t have sufficient transparency of our leads and sales operation,” said Maas. “We were losing opportunities as we didn’t have the right information to pursue the right follow-ups at the right time.”

A future-proofed CRM platform

Maas and his team started to investigate the CRM solutions available on the market. “We wanted a future-proofed platform that would support our business as it grew. Almost everyone told us we needed Salesforce - and after a demo, we realised they were right!” he added.

The potential for integration was also a deciding factor. “We could see the opportunities for automating back office processes,” explained Marcel van den Hudding, Chief Financial Officer at Maas & Kleiberg. “It’s important that we can stay efficient as we deal with more customers and more applications.”

The company rolled out Sales Cloud in March 2015. Everyone in the business - from sales reps and senior managers to consultants and finance teams use Salesforce on a daily basis. “Salesforce supports every area of our business and enables us to do more for less. It’s our platform for future growth.”

Greater mobility and productivity leading to more sales

The sales team now has complete visibility of the opportunity pipeline, which means it can prioritise follow-up actions. “In the past, we had to go back and forth to get updates on opportunities,” said Maas. “With Sales Cloud, everyone can see the status in real-time, which has helped to increase productivity.”

This visibility doesn't just help to push opportunities through the sales funnel; it also provides management with the pipeline intelligence they need to make informed business decisions. “We now have much greater insight into business performance,” said van den Hudding. “Better pipeline management, monitoring, and automated reminders have also improved the speed and quality of our response to prospective clients, which has contributed to a 50% faster deal cycle.”

The sales team can now generate quotes in seconds, rather than having to create a Word document from scratch each time. Combining this with the ability to send more targeted information to potential clients means that the sales team has improved conversion rates by at least 20%.

Senior management can track conversion rates and other key performance metrics via the Salesforce dashboards, which can also be accessed remotely via the Salesforce Mobile App. “The ability to work effectively while on the move is becoming increasingly important as our business grows”, said Maas. “Consultants can use the Salesforce Mobile App to check customer contacts and grant details on their way to meetings, which saves them time.”

Increasing efficiency through smarter integration and automation

As well as tracking every lead on Salesforce, Maas & Kleiberg tracks every grant application. Consultants can view and learn from previous successful submissions to maximise the value of grants for their clients. Key steps in the application process have been automated along with client communications. With fully integrated processes, client onboarding is now twice as fast.

Thanks to integration with Maas and Kleiberg’s accounting systems, invoices are raised automatically as soon as an application is successful. “Automated invoice generation not only saves time, but also improves cashflow,” explained van den Hudding.

Maas & Kleiberg wants to bring similar levels of automation to lead nurturing. With Pardot, the company will be able to create journeys and communications that are aligned to different customer needs. It will also help to segment and score leads at scale as the pipeline grows.

Improving partner and client collaboration through communities

Maas also has a vision for establishing a community to help manage the company’s relationships with around 25 partners. As he explained: “Our partners support our sales efforts and enable us to deliver additional services to our clients. With Community Cloud, we will be able to build a community where we can share leads and client updates and publicise new grants.”
Eventually, Maas & Kleiberg plans to develop a client community, which will provide real-time visibility of the status of grant applications and simplify the sourcing of information needed to make submissions.

With Salesforce, Maas & Kleiberg can turn these and other ideas into reality. It holds bimonthly sessions to encourage innovation and improvement. “We have a young team with lots of great ideas,” said van den Hudding. “With Salesforce, we can accelerate the innovation roadmap to help drive greater growth and competitive advantage.”

 
 

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