Eagle Copters

Based in Calgary, Alberta, Eagle Copters leases 43 helicopters to global customers. When the company replaced its manual spreadsheet-based process for tracking leases, parts, and maintenance with a Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online solution, employees gained easy access to consolidated data to streamline bank reporting, budget forecasting, and inventory management—and to enable proactive aircraft maintenance scheduling.

BUSINESS NEEDS

To the staff at Eagle Copters, a helicopter is not as much a flying machine as it is a collection of thousands of parts. Tracking the value of these components based on air time and manufacturing specs is essential for assessing the worth of each helicopter—a fundamental piece of data for the leasing and maintenance side of the business at Eagle Copters. The current value of each helicopter is used to fund credit facilities, for monthly invoices to lessees, and for the maintenance crews who overhaul or exchange components as needed. With tens of thousands of components in the 43 helicopters that make up the company’s leased fleet, tracking helicopter values is a daunting task.

“Each helicopter was associated with an enormous Excel spreadsheet that showed flight times and component life cycles,” says Crystal Darling, Asset Manager and Marketing Administrator at Eagle Copters. “Staff in maintenance, lease management, components exchange, and accounting—as well as myself, the President and CFO—all relied on this form. However, many people updated the spreadsheets manually, they were stored all over the place, and no one was sure if we were working with the current data.”

All this changed in 2013, when Eagle Copters began working with Betach Solutions to deploy Microsoft Office 365 cloud-based productivity tools. Initially Eagle Copters deployed Exchange Online, however, after Betach hosted a Customer Immersion Experience session with Eagle Copters management, the company also initiated global adoption of Lync Online.

As the Betach team learned about Eagle’s business, it suggested another project: automate the component tracking process with a customized platform solution using Microsoft Dynamics CRM. These customized solutions are known as xRM, and they answer specific customer relationship management issues for individual businesses. In this case, the xRM solution also uses Microsoft SharePoint Online and was chosen because it offered a consistent platform for all field staff and subsidiaries to share files. It also interoperates with the company’s existing Office 365 environment. “Betach was fantastic at seeing a solution that we could implement quickly after the Office 365 roll-out,” says Darling. “We started the discussions in October 2014 and went live in January 2015.”

The xRM solution automates reporting and evaluation processes, and it includes customization's to manage and track helicopter components, service histories, maintenance and inspections, insurance, invoicing, financial evaluations, and sales specifications.

AUTOMATES EVALUATIONS

Benefits of the xRM solution are proliferating across the company faster than the Excel spreadsheets it replaced. Instead of taking two weeks to compile bank reports each quarter, Darling needs only a few minutes to generate an accurate evaluation for each helicopter.

“I’m using Dynamics CRM Online to win back two months of my time every year,” says Darling. “And every month, I save a day on invoicing because I’m not cross-checking with our accounting system—I simply check a box to generate an invoice.”

CONSOLIDATES AND UPDATES DATA

The xRM solution acts as the interface for SharePoint Online, which stores bills of sale, registration and certification forms, lease contracts, flight hours, maintenance histories, equipment lists, and shipping data. Data updates happen in one place in real time. Straightforward access to consolidated, accurate data gives employee efficiency a huge boost—over the next year, Eagle Copters expects to save significant productivity costs. “The CFO saves hours creating asset management reports for lenders,” says Darling, “and it takes only a couple of clicks for sales reps to review component list values and send pictures to potential customers.”

Looking ahead, Eagle Copters plans to deploy the cloud-based solution to its subsidiaries in Chile and Australia. It will also be used by the company’s sales team. “We expect to expand the solution to more typical CRM tasks that our sales reps can access from the field using mobile devices,” says Darling. “We’ll also use the xRM solution to provide the data we need to assess the validity of a new business.”

IMPROVES INVENTORY MANAGEMENT, PREDICTIVE BUDGETING

Eagle Copters uses the xRM solution to build a historical database that forecasts component service schedules based on lessees’ flight times and usage. “We’ve never had historical data at our fingertips,” says Darling. “Now we can see trends in aircraft flight patterns and predict more accurately when components will need renewal or repair. We can manage our inventory accordingly and reduce inventory costs. Historical data also helps with budgeting: if we predict flight hours based on past patterns, we can better forecast our costs.”

REDUCES RISK

Eagle Copters employees are less likely to make manual errors because they work with automated business processes and have direct access to centralized data. For example, now that aircraft flight times are consolidated on one page, the company’s vice president of leasing can spot erroneous data easily, reducing the risk of inaccurate invoicing. “Consolidated data made available through an intuitive UI means we can provide information quickly should an auditor request it, or if there is a legal issue we have to address,” says Darling.

ENABLES PROACTIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE

Forecasting also helps improve customer service. Now Eagle Copters can anticipate when a particular component is reaching the end of its life span based on a lessee’s historical flight time patterns. Maintenance crews can have that component on hand, expediting its replacement. “It’s all about reducing downtime, which equates to lost productivity and revenue for our lessees,” says Darling. “The quicker we can get a helicopter back into service, the happier our customers are. Every way you look at it, our xRM solution is good for business.”