From Dos to the Cloud
Founded in 1979, System Scale is a leader in the weights and measures industry with several locations across the South and Midwest. When they came to Growth Heroes in 2013, they were looking to overhaul outdated business processes through Digital Transformation. Together, we began a decade-long partnership and a total transformation of every area of their business, including Marketing, Sales, Service, and Finance—which resulted in greater than 5x growth.
100% Digital Transformation of a Business
The Tech Stack in 2012
In 2012, System Scale was still largely relying on systems and processes put in place 20+ years ago, like many small-to-medium industrial services firms. They still used a DOS-based accounting system, carbon copy paper, and standard phones. Marketing efforts mostly consisted of local customer appreciation events and print advertising.
The Tech Stack in 2022
We implemented a tech stack full of modern automation tools, all centered around and integrated with Salesforce.
Marketing Transformation
2012
Besides the website, Marketing was 100% offline. Most new customers were created from sales pounding the pavement. Marketing attended local trade shows and hosted local barbecues with the “System Scale Smokers” team, which traveled to each office. They produced a promotional video and brochure, raffled off yeti coolers and tumblers—but without digital tools, there was zero visibility into ROI.
Today
- Set up an online-first digital marketing strategy, with visibility into performance metrics
- Integrated from Digital Ads through the website to Salesforce Opportunities for automated tracking of Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS)
- Implemented multi-touch attribution tracking on all Opportunities and Campaigns
Impact
- We started marketing in 2017, and by 2018 grew marketing-based leads from almost nothing to over 2 million per year. Prior to 2015, there is zero tracking of lead sources or marketing ROI
- The two-year Return on Advertising Spend for net new customers is $29 per $1 spent
- The immediate Return on Advertising Spend is over $5 per $1 spent
- Marketing-sourced new clients in 2021 have spent over 5 million to date. In 2022, new clients spent over 1 million (in the first year)
Sales Transformation
2012
One sales rep is located at each office, and it was up to them to service existing and new customers. Sales received commission on parts orders from existing clients equally as on net new clients, and a rep could easily meet their quota without gaining new clients. Representatives only had email, their phone, and printed marketing materials in their toolkit. The manual process was time-consuming and clunky: each Quote was scribbled down over the phone, or written up from scratch in Microsoft Word, and emailed to the customer.
Today
- Opportunities and Quotes are generated in Salesforce with Conga, saving time and avoiding losing track of deals
- Sales pipelines are visible and transparent across the company
- Automated commission includes rules and splits based on sale type and lead source
- We created inside sales to handle the higher volume of marketing and web-based leads
- Closed Won Opps automatically generate Orders and Work Orders and notify Service and Office Managers
Impact
- Year 1 closed over 250k in forgotten deals
- 70% increase in Product/Parts Sales from 2019-2023
- Ability to focus on New Logo and Whale Opp vs. low margin opps
Service Transformation
2012
Service tools consisted of cell phones, a scheduling white board, and carbon copy paper. All certificates had a leave behind copy, a filed copy, and potentially a copy mailed to the state. It was impossible to see trends on equipment, what equipment was on a contract, or when the next work order was due without shuffling through the paperwork.
Today
- Setup Maintenance Contracts and Work Orders in Salesforce
- Setup parts and equipment ordering, receiving, consumption and accounting
- Built custom offline-first iPad application for work in remote areas
- With all data in Salesforce, we built a customer portal to generate certificates on demand, see trends, and pay invoices
- All work, time, travel, parts, equipment, skills, and trainings are tracked in Salesforce to maintain ISO quality standards
Impact
- In 2016, we found over $40k worth of parts that were shipped but not invoiced for
- Reduced overtime from 2700 to 1700 hours and increased total billing efficiency from 67% to over 82%.
- Invoiced Service Revenue increased over 6x from 2019-2022
- Total active number of PMs increased by 20% from 2016-2022
- Invoiced Work Order Service Revenue YoY has almost doubled
Finance Transformation
2012
Office managers had to remote into a Windows XP server that ran DOS inside an emulator. Only one person could be in the system at a time. Comparing financial performance across the company had to be done manually by comparing P&L reports from each office. Credit card payment was taken over the phone and manually typed in or written down and processed later. All invoices were printed and mailed.
Today
- Migrated to Quickbooks Online with all locations in one system
- Automated Invoice generation based on Order and Work Orders to avoid missing anything
- Automated Sales tax calculation, reporting, and payment to states
- Created online payment portal, CalVault, to pay invoices, store payment information and retrieve Work Orders and Test certificates
- Employee payroll and timesheets are compared to billed time on site
Impact
- Cut Accounts Receivable days outstanding average from 64 to 36 days
- Reduced invoice write-offs by over $250,000 / year
- By 2017 we had doubled profit margin annually
- Cut credit card fees in half by implementing advanced automated reporting via authorize.net
The Best Digital Transformation Story
The measurable success of our complete Digital Transformation with System Scale resulted in an investor-worthy 23% annual return. This return is directly attributable to our partnership, vs. an increase in footprint or headcount. System Scale became 5x more efficient per person.
In 2012, nothing could be readily tracked past P&L. Now, every metric System Scale relies on is updated in real time or monthly in Salesforce and is added to a Dashboard for all employees to see. This allows the company to focus on specific metrics each quarter and move the needle, to systematically increase revenue and profit.
Growth Heroes Can Help Digitally Transform Your Business
Whether you are a scale-up looking to double in size, or an established company looking to grow profits, Growth Heroes can help lead your through the Digital Transformation journey. Contact us today to learn more.
