VINCI Airports partners with VISEO to roll out its global CRM on Salesforce

VINCI Airports, a subsidiary of VINCI, develops, finances, builds and exploits 46 airports around the world daily. In 2018 VINCI Airports and its 14,500 partners welcomed more than 240 million passengers.

The airport operator’s strong growth and widespread geographic distribution have given rise to a need for more standardized business processes, and therefore a global CRM.

“We’ve launched an initial design thinking phase in which we have brought together heads of service, managers, non-managers and sales people to define what our CRM should look like” said Pierre-Hugues Schmit, Chief Commercial Officer VINCI Airports. The call for tender was launched to developers, software companies and integrators at the end of 2017.

Salesforce Sales Cloud : a single solution for a two business challenges

The airport operator’s main challenge was to find a single solution for two of its main activities:

On one end, VINCI Airports works very closely with airlines and local tourism businesses to open new routes, increase the number of travelers and ensure the sustainable growth of its airports.

On the other, the company has been diversifying its extra-aeronotic activities as a means for improving the passenger experience, energize revenues and transform the time spent at the airport into a more meaningful part of every journey.

“The challenge has been to maintain the growth of our industrial expertise in the airport sector while defining clear processes in the sectors where we have decided to diversify. All the while being able to share information and maintain strong business synergies” explained Pierre-Hugues. “We have to keep in mind that the digital platform won’t do everything – it is there to reinforce our professionalization and growth strategy.”

“As a means for structuring an international deployment, we first built a core model, tested in our airports in 3 countries over 4 months. Next, we launched the solution to the business units across all of VINCI Airports’ facilities”, specified Véronique Guihot, Salesforce Project Manager at VISEO. “We released a global client relations management solution for both B2B activities to build on the network’s strengths and reinforce synergies between airports while leaving every business unit’s autonomy intact.”

VISEO & Salesforce : a winning team

Since the project’s geographical reach was so widespread one of the criteria for strong pickup was good ergonomics. “When the different teams saw the interface they were very quick to adopt the technology, and that was a major factor in making our choice”, confided Pierre-Hugues.

“After an initial design phase that was punctuated by workshops lead by VISEO experts, Business Process Owners and key users from both processes, the “Demo Days” were critical to success. Demo Days consisted in the BPOs organizing demos for the project’s sponsors, managers and key users, to show these future users and their managers how current processes would be implemented and evolve. These Demo Days placed the responsibility for the solution’s success and uptake during the project’s deployment on BPOs”, indicated Véronique.

VISEO’s multidisciplinary integration team and its on-the-ground approach during the tender period were both factors that made the digital services company a very attractive choice: “The team that was there during the tender process was also the team with whom we would be working later. Also, the team that VISEO put together seemed very dedicated and suited for the job’s unique context that was very bottom up and very international” Pierre-Hugues remarked. “VISEO’s thinking was very professional from that perspective – they quickly put us into the real situation which enabled us to see the team’s professional qualities first hand.”

A team of human dimensions

A team of eight consultants took on the project, which allowed for real interaction between the two teams and to maintain a good level of continuity throughout the project.

“VISEO was truly flexible and adaptable, and that was greatly appreciated”, says Pierre-Hugues. “Their team made a real effort to understand what we do, listen to our professional constraints, how we work, while remaining true to their duties. We were able to work adaptively because everyone made an effort to be understanding.”

A tool appropriated by the sales teams

In just a few months, sales teams and their managers were using Salesforce.

“The number of connections to Salesforce is at a good level. Everyone has received training and connects several times a week. It is used for all evaluations (aeronautics and extra-aeronautics), which is one of Salesforce’s strong points, thanks to ergonomics. We built a tool that matches our processes. It is important to note that the tool was adapted to our processes and not the opposite. That is where VISEO showed its real added value”, confided Pierre-Hugues.