Car and campervan hire company JUCY is easily recognised for its bright, bold vehicles which ply the highways and byways of New Zealand and beyond. Behind the scenes, the company takes innovation seriously and it has put digital transformation at the centre of its determination to do things better and consistently delight customers. With the help of its technology partner Intergen, it has opted for a platform approach, implementing the Microsoft stack to benefit from systems which enable it to provide a unique, individualised customer experience that “gives people the green light to have the time of their lives”.

Dylan Haskins, Intergen’s Dynamics practice manager, called JUCY’s commitment to innovation ‘remarkable’. “This is an organisation which is determined to achieve a lot in a short timeframe. It recognised that to do so successfully depends on having a technology platform and partner that can help, taking care of the underlying systems and technology, while it focuses on creating new and exciting value propositions for its customers.”

Haskins added that through the implementation of multiple Microsoft technologies, including Dynamics 365, Dynamics 365 for Sales (CRM), Power BI and PowerApps, all on the Azure platform, JUCY is equipped to rapidly experiment and prototype. “For example, with PowerApps, business units and branches can knock up new applications. They can find and prototype solutions to create operational efficiency or streamline essential processes, like bookings and reservations, while the availability of PowerBI analytics makes it easy to access and use information effectively.”

Dynamics for Sales (CRM) is the latest piece of the Microsoft toolkit the company has implemented to stay ahead of the pace of innovation. JUCY CIO Tristin King said that although it is early days, this deployment has ‘opened up a world of opportunity’. “It’s like building a house and CRM is the framework that’s now in place. We’ve moved five separate CRM instances into one so we have a single view of the customer and can clearly see our customers’ individual journeys. Plus, we can use Power BI to make sense of the information, helping us tailor the right experience to each traveller, which is important in our role as ‘concierge’.”

Already, he added, small returns on investment are being seen every day. “These will add up to the big ROI over time. We’ve already automated 15-20% of our automations, and that’s only just the very beginning. It’s great being able to make the most of the out of the box features without getting coders or devs involved; and we’re also really excited about what Dynamics 365 and the Common Data Model is going to allow us to do, giving the opportunity to leverage data from CRM and create business apps as and when we need them.”

He added that as a global organisation, the fact that everything is in the cloud is a major advantage. “We now have a global platform that we’re in control of, which is accessible anywhere – and we no longer have to worry about things like data security and backups, which means our people can focus on developing cool add-ons rather than spending their time keeping the lights on and all the various services running.”

In its quest to become a fully digital business, King is forthright on how its ambitious goals are to be achieved: “I can’t underestimate the value of having a great partner. With big implementations like these, it’s not going to be easy, and it’s great having a partner who will work with you and do whatever it takes to make things work.”

Part of JUCY’s digital transformation journey, said Haskins, is the flexibility to respond to changing circumstances or create entirely new business cases. “JUCY has grown from a fleet of 35 vehicles to over 4000; it has also expanded into different areas of business, including tours and accommodation, with its success resting on a willingness to try new things, do it differently and better. With the Microsoft platform, it is equipped to ‘fail fast and win faster’, by rapidly moving from concept, to idea, to testing and either production or back to the drawing board for the next great idea.”

James Page, Intergen GM, said the ‘whole of Microsoft proposition’ is compelling for businesses looking to achieve digital transformation. “Digital transformation can be looked at through a number of different lenses, but ultimately it is about driving a new business paradigm which shifts the value that an organisation is able to create. It isn’t about a single product or product set; that’s what makes JUCY’s approach so exciting. It has taken the whole gamut of solutions available from Microsoft, using that as a value multiplier, to support customer transformation and the evolution of its business.”

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