GCG finds success expanding beyond ERP

One of the core technology benefits of Microsoft Dynamics 365 is giving partners access to a unified platform that they can use to deliver impact across customer organizations. Many partners start out with building practices around a single workload, and then expand their capabilities into other solution areas, helping them accelerate growth and create “stickiness’ within accounts. 

GCG, a consulting services company that focuses on selling and implementing integrated business solutions on Microsoft Dynamics 365 for midsized and large companies in Latin America, is a great example of a partner that has successfully executed on this type of expansion. The result has been not only growth, but new avenues of driving business transformation for their very loyal customers. 

Strategic expansion from ERP to CRM

Starting as an ERP solution provider, GCG saw customers’ business needs expanding rapidly around customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence and made the strategic decision to invest in a new practice area around Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement.

“Our ERP practice was very profitable and CRM projects were comparatively small in terms of revenue, so it felt like a risky move,” said Bernardo de la Cabada, CEO of GCG. “But given we wanted to be trusted advisors to our customers across their business, and this was a critical need, we decided to make the investment.” 

While initial projects were small, GCG’s Dynamics 365 customer engagement practice has grown from just five percent of total annual revenue in the early years, to close to 30 percent today—with trending data showing that it will surpass its ERP business in the next three years. “ERP projects are usually a first, critical business need and they tend to be complicated and take a longer time to implement,” continued de la Cabada. “With CRM, we are able to show business impact very fast, and customers are happy with the services we’re providing them. We are betting a lot on CRM for the future.”

Unified solutions improve value for customers like Cuprum

GCG’s practice expansion has brought essential business capabilities to many of its customers, including Cuprum, the largest aluminum extruder in Latin America. As a manufacturer of ladders and prefabricated windows and leader in the commercialization of aluminum foil, Cuprum had adopted Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain solutions and decided to standardize on Dynamics 365 across all divisions to help the business be more agile in responding to market changes and customer requests.

GCG began working with several business groups to improve their customer engagement processes. With Escaleras Cuprum, known as Louisville Ladders in the United States, GCG implemented Dynamics 365 Sales, Marketing and Customer Voice solutions to improve management of key distributors, providing a more consistent experience and quicker response to distributor inquiries. 

With Cuprum Industrial Solutions, which handles extrusion services, GCG helped improve sales operations by deploying Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Voice. “With Dynamics 365 this data is part of the same platform as finance, supply chain management, and sales data, so Cuprum can now understand how customer satisfaction is impacting its overall business,” said Guillermo Varela, Sales Director at GCG. 

GCG is continuing to work with Cuprum to deepen and extend its usage of Dynamics 365 functionality. The company is already working with GCG to investigate how it can leverage products like Dynamics 365 Sales Insights and Customer Insights to move from a transactional selling to intelligence-based selling. “Incorporating capabilities like recommending next best action for sellers or providing next best offer for customers will help grow and deepen customer engagements,” said Varela.

Continuing to innovate for the future

With its strong focus on customer success, it’s not surprising that GCG has developed a long list of valuable customer references and has been named Microsoft Dynamics Partner of the Year LATAM eight times. To ensure that it continues to help clients meet business goals, GCG invests in exploring new technologies that can help drive further innovation and transformation. One of the big bets for the future is Power Platform.

“When it comes to Power Platform, we’re in a similar situation we were facing with CRM. The projects may not be very big today but the versatility of the platform in delivering low-code applications and workflow automations that show immediate business results is going to drive adoption quickly,” said de la Cabada. “Between ERP, CRM, our growing work with Business Central and Power Platform, our goal is to become one of the top Dynamics partners in the world.

To learn more about GCG’s success in expanding their Dynamics 365 business, read the full case study. 

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