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Client story

Merz North America

A flexible, easily configurable platform demonstrates its true value for Merz North America.

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Client since

2015
 

Type of giving

  • Medical Education Grants
  • Corporate Charitable Giving
  • Commercial Sponsorships and Exhibits
  • Investigator-Initiated Research

Old system

Excel spreadsheets
 

SmartSimple solution

Key pain points

  • Paper-based documentation process
  • Manual signature
  • Payment request processes

New system must-haves

  • Eco-friendly, paperless process
  • Compliance and legal audit readiness
  • Online grant application, review, and approval processes

At a glance

Merz North America, Inc., wanted to create a more efficient, innovative solution to continue building exceptional customer relationships. Their ultimate goal was to create a centralized system that was intuitive to use for all internal and external users. With SmartSimple Cloud, Merz discovered the advantages of an online grant application process and a clear, completely trackable audit trail. Their office is now paper-free, and their approval process is completely automated, improving efficiencies and enabling them to approve and distribute funding more quickly and easily than before.

 

About Merz North America

Founded in 1908, the Merz Pharma Group is a family owned company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany. Merz North America operations specializes in the development of innovative treatment solutions in aesthetics and neurosciences. Merz North America’s granting program administers funding for commercial program support, medical education, corporate charitable giving, and investigator-initiated research.

 

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Opportunities for the integration of automation

Prior to working with SmartSimple Cloud, Merz North America has explored the possibility of integrating with an automated platform. “We were looking for an innovative solution to grow and develop efficiencies,” says Michael Hall, Senior Manager of Grants & Giving, Systems, and Analytics. “Manual internal application reviews, check requests and electronic signature capture were areas of opportunity for increased automation.”

 

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Merz North America’s desire was to continue to improve and positively impact its relationships with scientific, educational and charitable communities. “We wanted to ensure that users of our Grants and Giving portal would experience a simple, easy-tounderstand process while submitting their requests. We also wanted to optimize our opportunities for creating a presence as a corporate sponsor for various events.”

 
 

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  • quote-testimonial
    Sharing our SmartSimple Cloud experience with other Merz departments and affiliates has helped us demonstrate our value and commitment to live our vision to become the most admired, trusted, and innovative company for our customers. We've also been able to illustrate how the SmartSimple Cloud might be used in other areas of the organization.
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    Michael Hall

    Senior Manager of Grants & Giving, Systems and Analysis,Merz North America, Inc.

A large corporation with unique, complex system requirements

The organization felt it was time to invest in an automated granting system to create efficiencies and bring value to the entire process. “As both a specialty healthcare company and a granting organization, we had some pretty unique requirements for a grants and giving program.”

 

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After reviewing several options, SmartSimple Cloud's flexibility, extensive features, and platform flexibility won the Merz team over. “While many others offered very nice out-of-the-box products, none of them had the level of configurability SmartSimple Cloud offered. It was clear this was a platform that would provide value to the team while allowing for future growth.”

“The specialty healthcare industry is constantly changing, so having a system where we could easily add features and functionality as we needed was a valuable benefit.”

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  • quote-testimonial
    It was clear this was a platform that would provide value to the team while allowing for future growth.
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    Michael Hall

    Senior Manager of Grants & Giving, Systems and Analysis,Merz North America, Inc.

A specialized team to meet specialized needs

“We kicked off the project by sitting down with our SmartSimple project manager to discuss our needs and what we hoped to accomplish with our system. Based on our needs, SmartSimple created a project plan for us that was personalized, well designed and easy to implement. The implementation team was very responsive to our concerns, questions, and ideas. Anytime we brought up an issue it was addressed quickly and handled professionally.”

 

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“The complete automation of Merz North America’s grants and giving activities has vastly improved efficiencies for everyone on the team, and created an innovative Grants & Giving portal.”

 

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  • quote-testimonial
    Based on our needs, SmartSimple created a project plan for us that was personalized, well designed, and easy to implement.
    headshot-testimony-michael-hall-1

    Michael Hall

    Senior Manager of Grants & Giving, Systems and Analysis,Merz North America, Inc.

Seamless integration for improved processing

“We’ve also successfully used SmartSimple Cloud's integration with an online document signing platform that gives us the ability to send documents via email for electronic signatures. Having online signature capture has been a huge time-saver; it’s an incredibly valuable integration for us. SmartSimple Cloud has taken an immense administrative burden off of our shoulders.”

 
 

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“The SmartSimple team has been responsive and we enjoy collaborating with them,” concludes Michael. “They focus on teamwork and finding workable solutions. We love how the platform can be molded and tweaked to make it even more user-friendly. The Technical Community Support team has been wonderful, always working with us to find an optimal solution, and they always offer options when we present a problem. Others across our organization who have only ever associated our team with granting are now talking about us as a valued partner in the business, helping to create new opportunities for everyone.”

 
 
 

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  • quote-testimonial
    Having online signature capture has been a huge time-saver; it’s an incredibly valuable integration for us. SmartSimple Cloud has taken a huge administrative burden off of our shoulders.
    headshot-testimony-michael-hall-1

    Michael Hall

    Senior Manager of Grants & Giving, Systems and Analysis,Merz North America, Inc.

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