CASE STUDY

Ireland-Based Software Consulting Firm Runs On Bigin

Luison Lassala, General Manager, Bedrock Success Consulting
  • Industry TypeSoftware consulting
  • Type of businessPrivately held
  • Previously used softwareSmartsheet, Salesforce Essentials

Features that helped us grow

Multiple pipelines Activity tracking G Suite Integration

Luison Lassala founded Bedrock Success in 2010, based out of Galway, Ireland. Prior to founding Bedrock Success, Luison spent 15 years working independently as a consultant helping non-profits, and occasionally others, manage their business on the cloud. He specialized in CRM implementation, enabling numerous companies with the technology they need to stay on top of their donations and grow their influence. Luison also works with small businesses in the same capacity and has implemented many different CRM systems over the years, none of which he felt were designed with them in mind. He even explored Salesforce Essentials, but found it limited and hard to use, and therefore a poor fit for small businesses.

In Luison's experience, most CRM vendors see their entry-level offerings as a gateway to push higher-cost and more complex editions—they're typically not purposefully designed for the daily needs of smaller companies, and even more so for organisations operating without annual IT budgets. Although Luison knows up close the travails of using only spreadsheets, word processing tools, and email for business operations, it's not always easy to convince businesses to invest in CRM-type software.

In November of 2019, Luison began exploring Zoho CRM to assess its suitability for smaller clients. While in discussions with the customer support team, Luison learned of a product in development called Bigin. On that recommendation, he created an account and soon discovered he'd found the perfect CRM—not just for his own use, but also for some of his clientele. Luison was immediately impressed by the simplicity of functionality including pipeline management and forms, and was equally delighted to see features for managing duplicates and workflow automation. "This little product was the answer to my search for the perfect CRM for small businesses whose primary goal is to track and manage their activities and revenue. For once, a software application offered everything they need, and yet not too much to detract or overwhelm this segment of users. I can already see many of my personal network of clients and prospects in Ireland running their activities on Bigin, and I am confident that the number will grow exponentially in future," Luison said.

Luison is now an avid Bigin user himself, and stressed the importance of the following functionality in helping him manage his consulting business on a day-to-day basis.

This little product was the answer to my search for the perfect CRM for small businesses whose primary goal is to track and manage their activities and revenue. For once a CRM offered everything, and yet not too much to detract or overwhelm this segment of users.

Different pipelines for clients and suppliers

Luison's work with clients is not based on one-off deals, but is more often a long-term relationship of software implementation, followed by subsequent tweaks and additions to their system. Luison uses the standard pipeline with the following stages to track the progress of each deal: qualification, proposal/price quote, in-progress, paid-in-advance, and finally, paid-in-full. A quick look at the Kanban View of this pipeline lets him see the amount of revenue in individual sales stages. Similarly, Luison uses a different pipeline for his suppliers, software developers that he works with for specific enhancements to his offerings. The pipeline stages for suppliers are as follows: inquired (to denote whether he has made inquiries about their availability for tasks), proposal received (when he's received a price quote for tasks), In-progress (to denote acceptance of the quote and tasks in progress), invoice-received (to denote receiving an invoice for the completed tasks), and payment-made (to denote payment made to the supplier for the completion of tasks).

Activities module to stay on top of all tasks

This is Luison's most frequent use for Bigin. For every Deal, there are a set of different activities, like "Create new module for attendees," "schedule a call for Friday," "send annual maintenance quote for approval," and more. In a single day, Luison could have over five different tasks for various deals, a few calls, and also a meeting or two to attend. And with such a busy schedule, activity dashboards and reminders make sure Luison stays on top of everything.

Google calendar integration for managing events

Many of Luison's meetings are booked via his Google Calendar. Bigin integrates with G-Suite to allow for the events scheduled on Google Calendar to reflect in Bigin's Events section. This allows him to manage all meetings from one place.

Tagging for quick identification

Bigin comes with the option to tag every record according to custom needs. Luison uses tags to associate deals and tags with the products and software he implemented for each client. This gives him the ability to identify and search for specific records as needed.

Custom fields to store business specific data

Luison was also impressed that Bigin allows you to create custom fields for every module. He now uses new fields to capture details of the various products that are implemented for each customer.

Overall, Bigin has made a significant difference for Bedrock Success. "The scope for Bigin is immense, and it hits the sweet spot between a simple contact management tool and a fully-fledged CRM system. People who use spreadsheets to manage their business live in a flat world. They miss out on the benefits of relational data that exists in CRM apps like Bigin, where multiple associations can exist for a single contact, account, or deal. This is often the sole reason data stored in spreadsheets is unnecessarily huge and prone to multiple errors. I am excited for the future of Bigin, and I am already in the process of recommending it to many people in my network," Luison said.

  • Industry TypeSoftware consulting
  • Type of businessPrivately held
  • Previously used softwareSmartsheet, Salesforce Essentials

Features that helped us grow

Multiple pipelines Activity tracking G Suite Integration

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