NEC is more than just one of the world’s top IT solutions and technology infrastructure companies. According to David Borean, Vice President Brand and Customer Experience at NEC Australia, the real difference that NEC brings to the table is its long tradition of social value.

“Social values of safety, security, fairness, and efficiency are the core of our DNA at NEC,” says Borean. “We’re not just creating technology for technology’s sake. We’re focusing on how our technologies and services can positively impact customers and communities around the world to address society’s needs.”

Borean takes pride in examples of how NEC is changing the world. Working with governments and large enterprises, NEC provides technologies that make cities more connected and safer for citizens. At airports, NEC helps make the travellers’ experience more seamless and secure. In emerging countries around the world, NEC works with organisations to fingerprint children and give them an official identity, which opens doors for educational and job opportunities later in life.

“When you look at NEC, we’re a broad company,” adds Borean. “We deliver a huge range of products and services that are used across almost every industry. That means we deal with all types of customers, and we want to do everything we can to make sure that each customer gets the best possible experience and service from us.”

Understanding customers through data

When Borean was looking for ways to improve the customer experience, he started with data. Data is how marketers, sales representatives, product developers, and other team members learn who their potential customers are and what they need from NEC services. But that data was traditionally siloed for each team. Borean knew that if NEC could combine that data, it could achieve greater insights with a 360-degree view of each customer.

“We wanted three things out of our data: measurement, accuracy, and accountability,” says Borean. “We wanted to measure everything that we could to learn more about our customers. We wanted to be accurate in that measurement. And finally, we wanted to use those measurements to add accountability within the organisation. How were teams interacting with customers, and how were those actions impacting the bottom line?”

NEC began searching for a marketing technology platform that could bring together all customer interactions. After an extensive search, Borean chose Adobe Marketo Engage for its deep functionality and strong integrations with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

“When it came time to make our selection, it became evident that Adobe Marketo Engage would provide value for years to come,” says Borean. “Adobe was terrific throughout our long sales engagement period. They really worked with us to understand our issues and determine how to best improve customers experiences.”

Deploying ahead of schedule with BluprintX

Normally NEC might have scheduled nine months to deploy Marketo Engage and set up the critical integrations with Microsoft Dynamics. But the company wanted the new platform running in time for IMMERSION—an NEC Australia event that highlighted game-changing companies and leaders in Australia. The event would be a prime opportunity to connect with potential customers, and Borean wanted to make sure that NEC was ready to impress with top customer experiences. That left only four months for the Marketo Engage implementation.

Adobe Marketo Engage Silver Partner BluprintX joined the team, providing expertise that would help streamline Marketo Engage deployment and Microsoft Dynamics integrations. “BluprintX helped us navigate a lot of complexity around data, people, and processes to accelerate implementation,” says Borean. “We needed integrations set up in just six weeks, and BluprintX delivered ahead of schedule.”

BluprintX supported NEC beyond just integration. The BluprintX team worked closely with stakeholders and strategists, taking time to learn about all NEC processes to build out a more efficient sales and marketing pipeline.

“Working on such a tight timeline, we had to really listen to the NEC team about their concerns and use our expertise to help them challenge their existing practices,” says Graham Porter, CEO of BluprintX APAC. “It was a very collaborative engagement that allowed us to build a better future for NEC with improvements to processes and operations.”

Gaining a complete view of customers

Now all customer information is pulled from across sources into Microsoft Dynamics, providing a 360-degree view of customers. This view is then pushed into Marketo Engage, which applies a lead score to each customer based on their behaviours and buying signals. Marketo Engage then assigns different types of engagement—nurture emails, event invitations—based on where someone is in the customer journey and what types of products or services they’re interested in. If customers react to ads, webinars, or sales prospecting, their behaviours are fed back into Microsoft Dynamics to continue building out the customer profile.

The full customer view allows NEC to see how different touchpoints affect customers throughout their journeys, allowing the company to better attribute results to different parts of the business. “Attribution is especially critical for the early stages of new campaigns or touchpoints,” says Borean. “We can look at the attribution to determine whether new methods of engagement produce returns.”

Marketo Engage also helps to better engage sales representatives with new leads. The sales team helped build out the matrix used for lead scoring. With a clearer understanding of customer behaviour, sales representatives can spend more time delivering focused and personalised engagement with customers.

For marketers, this deeper understanding of customers opens the doors for personalisation. Marketing teams have already rolled out 15 new email campaigns. “With Adobe Marketo Engage, we focus on more personalised, event-based marketing that specifically targets customers based on their known interests,” says Borean. “Adobe Marketo Engage provides a high level of efficiency for all outbound campaigns. Templates are streamlined and easy to use and our ability to measure and assess success is instantly available. We see better alignment between marketing and sales as marketing has a better idea of who to nurture and how, based on sales priorities.”

Setting the foundation for greater personalisation

While still early in the Marketo Engage and Microsoft Dynamics implementation, Borean has ambitious plans to improve customer experiences and deliver strong revenue growth. NEC plans to start testing campaigns and landing pages to better guide customers through the customer journey. NEC also plans to start moving away from product-focused marketing to customer-focused marketing. This will not only involve personalising communications to individual leads, but also getting a better overview of all leads across a company.

“Integrating Adobe Marketo Engage and Microsoft Dynamics gives us a central hub that allows all teams to better understand customers,” says Borean. “It’s bringing sales and marketing closer together as we create more valuable experiences, leading to more revenue and happier customers.”

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