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“I want the best CPQ tool for our Dynamics 365 eco-system. With e-Con CPQ we’re about to enter the after-sales market with time savings in service inspection and analyses from 8 weeks to just 1 week. e-Con CPQ will pay off big time!”

Boudewijn Rast, Group IT Manager

Fluiconnecto by Manuli

Fluiconnecto by Manuli is a leading international service organization, focused on high pressure hoses and fluid connectors. They provide products, application engineering knowledge, and maintenance services to market segments that include Construction, Industry & Agriculture, Marine, Mining, and Oil & Gas. Fluiconnecto works through a global network tailored to local conditions—hydroshops, on-site workshops, and service on-site vans—that lets them reach customers across 5 continents.

So Fluiconnecto by Manuli is well-trained to take full advantage of technology innovations, and they’re taking full advantage of e-Con CPQ. Along with using e-Con as a product configurator/product selector, they’ve discovered how effective e-Con can be for after-sales services and project calculations. e-Con CPQ is successfully implemented with Fluiconnecto and now Fluiconnecto is discovering how to use e-Con in combination with Dynamics 365 Field Service. And the ways they would like to implemented e-Con CPQ within Field Services are quite unique, so therefore we would like to show their vision on e-Con CPQ for Dynamics 365 Field Service.

The company devotes much of its business to providing equipment lifecycle management, which means they spend a lot of time calculating service inspections. For a bulldozer this can be an easy task, Fluiconnecto handles very big and complicated equipment—for example, dredging vessels. Before e-Con, the company might spend weeks simply checking all engines and parts that are packed with high pressure hoses and fluid connectors. To complicate matters, customers couldn’t afford the downtime in harbor for a complete inspection, so Fluiconnecto needed to send a service inspector sailing away with the vessel. Inspectors literally couldn’t get back to work until a vessel docked, and most often needed to take a plane from a far-flung location.

That’s a lot of time and expense lost from the start. In addition, because an at-sea inspection process wasn’t automated or connected to the business database, the inspector manually recorded all needed parts and repairs and only later keyed them into the system. Fluiconnecto prides itself on lean efficiency, so the company was frustrated by the amount of time and money spent before actual maintenance and service could begin. They wanted solutions, beginning with implementing Microsoft Dynamics for both Sales and for Finance and Operations.

Why e-Con CPQ?

Fluiconnecto knew that the standard configurator functionality in Dynamics 365 wasn’t enough for their needs, so they went on a search for the best CPQ tool. They needed to meet 3 main criteria:

The CPQ tool must be a fully Microsoft Dynamics Certified Application (CfMD)
The CPQ tool must be available and supported globally
The CPQ tool must be always upgradable with newer Dynamics 365 versions without obstacles and customizations

Fluiconnecto by Manuli believes in the ecosystem Dynamics 365 offers, so it wasn’t long before they decided on e-Con CPQ. As the most dedicated CPQ tool available for Microsoft Dynamics, e-Con was a logical choice.

e-Con CPQ for Dynamics 365 Field Service

Fluiconnecto by Manuli will be implementing e-Con CPQ for all service inspections for vessels and ships. e-Con can handle the daunting task of working with thousands of assemblies of hoses and connectors, and with different specs for each item. Indeed, with e-Con CPQ, they can conquer the after-sales market and see healthy margins.

To start, all information is current, complete, and accessible from any location. e-Con also connects directly with the asset table in Dynamics 365 Field Service. Using e-Con on a tablet, a service inspector knows what specific items are in an assembly and after keying in all needed information, e-Con CPQ generates a maintenance advice and contract. Fluiconnecto has discovered also that e-Con is powerful and flexible enough to handle the massive amounts of information needed for automated, error-free service contracts. Indeed, e-Con is proving to be the most powerful project calculation tool that Fluiconnecto by Manuli ever have seen.

To illustrate the business case Fluiconnecto by Manuli is making: With e-Con CPQ a service inspector is able to analyze a vessel in less than 5 days, when a vessel is temporarily in a harbor. Right now, it could take 5-8 weeks to go on board a vessel and do all the math during a sail. Using e-Con CPQ will save weeks per service inspection. All information is digital, so it’s much easier to access or share information. With 30 engineers working at any given time, Fluiconnecto will realize enormous savings using e-Con CPQ.