4.1.4 Marketing connections

Business group
Architect, engineer and design offices  

Company
We are an industrial design company that is able to do process design, mechanical plant design, electrification design, automation design and information technology design for either new or renovated industrial plant. Our customers are industrial plants and companies that carry out project deliveries to industry.

Operating description
Marketing communications

  1. Marketing connections/new leads
    We normally operate as follows:
    We call the customer's person on the phone and after a short oral presentation, we ask the customer's person if there would be an opportunity to present our company's operations and references right now? If the answer is positive, we will send an e-mail invitation to a pre-prepared Edico session. Sometimes we send the session invitation even before taking the phone connection, in which case we explain in the email that we will soon take the phone connection.
    We do not normally use passwords in marketing-related presentation sessions, because our company's presentation material is not confidential information. Through the telephone connection, we are able to guide the invited person to the session and, when he is in the session, to guide him to open the image - and the audio connection, or at least the audio connection.
    Now we can close the phone connection and start the presentation (files) that takes place in the Edico session, which the client sees on his computer screen as we do. The customer's representative can hear our voice and, if desired, see our image. We accordingly hear and see him.
    The customer must have a camera and microphone on their computer or smart device so that the sound and video connection can work in the Edico session. If the customer's representative does not have the above-mentioned technical matters in order, he can still present files to the customer during the Edico session and manage the voice connection by phone. If, in connection with the first contact above, a more extensive presentation at Edico's session does not suit the customer now, we will try to arrange a later time that is more convenient for the customer.
    Edico - the use of the session in marketing has proven to be convenient and it largely replaces personal demonstration visits to the customer and thus saves on travel and also enhances marketing and saves costs.
  2. Marketing connections/previous clients
    We also keep in touch with previous customers using the Edico service, because we want to have confidential discussions with them about possible new projects. We also want to present new information about our activities and services. Through the Edico service, all of this happens cost-effectively without phone bills, and several representatives of the customer and, if necessary, several of our representatives can participate in the session at the same time. In addition, different participants in the session can return later to view the material as long as the session is open. The locations of the customer's representatives and our representatives may be scattered across the globe.
  3. Other customer connections/current customers
    We use the Edico service in many ways to handle different things with our customers. A large part of the matters are confidential and it is important that they remain so. Connections can be created precisely between such persons in the customer's and our organization, who are affected by certain issues. We often handle matters related to the procurement of projects on behalf of the client. A few examples:
    Automation installation: we put the tender request material in the Edico session. We send the invitation to the session via Edico by e-mail and the password to the session by text message to the companies from which we want to receive an offer. At the same time, we ask you to indicate whether the company makes an offer or not. In addition, we ask that you download the different files of the tender material to your computer by a certain day, on which we will close this tender session from the companies offering. It is also possible to hold joint simultaneous sessions dealing with the request for tender, where we can present the request for tender to all the companies that have received the request for tender and interactively deal with the issues that belong to it. Video, audio and file connections are available.

    For those companies that announced that they will make a bid, we will send an invitation to a separate bidding session via Edico via email and text message with the password for the bidding session. The bidding session is a separate session for each company that intends to make a bid, and we will clearly point this out to each bidding company. They also see that their bidding session does not have issues related to the bids of other bidding companies. Before and also after the final date of submission of bids, we can manage contacts with each bidding company through their own bidding session set up for them. Video, audio and file connections are available. Each bidding company leaves its offer in its own offer folder no later than the day of the offer, from which we can download it for ourselves and make offer comparisons between different offers, we put the offer comparison file in the offer comparison session, to which we send an invitation and a password to the customer's representatives who participate in making the procurement decision. This session is only used for the decision-making process and the video, audio and file presentation connections are available interactively. Often in this session it is only decided with which bidding companies to hold the final procurement negotiations (see report A01-Y01-K07 for a more detailed description of our method for conducting the final procurement negotiations), the customer makes a decision on procurement after the final procurement negotiations. The order is placed in the order session (order folder) of the project's automation installation, the invitation and password of which are sent to such persons in the company receiving the order as the company has informed us. At the same time, the recipient company is asked to put the order confirmation in the same order folder, from which we and/or the customer can download it for themselves.
    Through this order session, issues related to orders and order confirmations can be processed simultaneously between different parties. Video, audio and file connections are available. 

However, the biggest advantage, in addition to efficiency, is that you can exchange confidential information or any information between separate people without fear of information leakage, either in simultaneous sessions or in separate sessions.