The architecture agency Bechu & Associates has been using Anaba since 2020 to manage their contacts.
This century-old family agency, with around fifty employees across France and abroad, operates across a wide range of areas of expertise.
This breadth of expertise is reflected in the diversity of professional contacts managed by the agency.
Agility is one of the agency's defining values, alongside "the transmission and sharing of knowledge."
These principles extend to the way the agency manages its contacts, having chosen Anaba "in the interest of optimisation."
"Anaba encouraged a new way of thinking about our contact base, far more logical"
explains Boris Spojda, who has held the position of technical assistant at the agency since 2007. "Very quickly, we cleaned up our historical database and became much more responsive."
In this account, he traces the progress made and explains how the agency has simplified its day-to-day operations thanks to Anaba.
In his own words:
(Comments collected in November 2021 — titles added)
1. The search for the right tool for contact management
1.1 - Years 2007-2016: the ACCESS database
“When I arrived and until 2016, we used an ACCESS database with a graphical interface, created at the time by the computer specialist in place.
It was updated by the executive assistant. Major updates to ensure the relevance of contacts involved verification contact by contact, by telephone.
A tedious process. For the sake of optimization, we wanted to explore a new solution.”
1.2 - Years 2016-2020: the “gas factory”
“In 2016, we turned to a complete software solution, a bit like a “gas factory”, which brought together within the same platform customer database, financial tracking solution and work and team planning.
We had to do several dozen hours of work sessions in order to arrive at a version that was almost usable, by “modeling the solution at our expense, within the limits of the software.”
The user manual for the solution was nearly 200 pages long and very few people in the agency took the time to feed this database.”
1.3 - From 2020: contact management goes through anaba
“After 3 years of commitment, we started looking for another solution. It was in this context that we contacted, in the middle of the year 2020, with the anaba team.
From the first presentation to our management, the solution seduced us with its simplicity, very visible and very palpable.
This simplicity has guided our journey with anaba to date, from deployment to use.”
2. A tool that ticks all the boxes
2.1 - Structuring the contact base
“Our old tool left an infinite number of field possibilities to associate with a contact. This did not help with the structuring of the database or with its daily use.
The functionalities present in anaba have boosted our agency another way of thinking about our base, much more logical.
Indeed, anaba makes it possible to simply categorize contacts (by profession for example) and to associate tags with them.
This dual system allows employees to find any contact very easily, regardless of the search entry (a name, a profession, a company, a project, etc.).”
2.2 - Manage confidentiality and access rights
“The privacy management was an important point for us.
The objective was to be able easily set up access rights according to the different user profiles: Management, Associates, Project Directors, Project Managers, Collaborative Architects.
Three levels of access to the contact database have been defined: consultation, publishing, and exportation of data. the latter option being reserved for administrators.
This configuration was carried out in just a few manipulations, based on the list of users that we had prepared beforehand.”
2.3 - Ensuring effective configuration
“THEsetup was carried out by our IT specialist in a few seconds on all of our employees' Outlook mailboxes.
To access anaba, our employees can simply log in with their Outlook credentials.”
3. Fast and seamless deployment
3.1 - Scalability of user access guaranteed
“We have today 50 user licenses on anaba.
The list of users is alive: thanks to the existence of an “administration” space dedicated to rights management in the anaba solution, any workforce movement can be reflected in the following seconds.”
3.2 - Immediate onboarding of employees into the tool
“Anaba is accessible directly from your Outlook mailbox, but also from a browser and even a mobile phone.
To accompany the deployment within the teams, I created user manuals for the teams according to their status (contributors or readers) and the different modes of use (Outlook mailbox, browser, telephone). A few pages were enough.”
3.3 - Simple and intuitive use
“The solution is acclaimed internally for its ease of use. Access to the tool thanks to the anaba extension for Outlook (or via the browser) is very intuitive.
Despite the initial reluctance of some collaborators, all of them were voluntary after some manipulations. Compared to the old one, they are Much more numerous to consult this new solution.”
4. The life of the agency made easier on a daily basis
4.1 - A continuously updated database
“With Anaba, we were able to clean up our historical base very quickly, in just a few weeks.
Email address verification of our contacts is automatic: for each contact searched from the anaba Outlook extension, the tool we Inform if the email is still valid. The update of other contact information (change of position or organization for example) is also automatically suggested based on LinkedIn information.
This quality of data has a real impact on our internal management since we now have a better monitoring of our contacts by projects, So our teams save precious time.
Adding a contact is also facilitated. On the one hand, it is very easy to create a new contact. On the other hand, anaba also synchronizes with the professional Outlook mailbox of our employees to Automatically suggest the addition of new contacts in the database each time an email is opened. For each suggestion, they just need to check the automatically pre-filled contact information; validation and addition to the database is done in one click.
The database is therefore enriched much more quickly, since each employee can create new contacts without leaving their inbox and easily share them with the rest of the company.”
4.2 - A time-saver to focus on the essentials
“The easy access to company contacts from the various workstations saves valuable time for our agency.
The great ease of exporting contacts in a targeted manner allows us to be more reactive in any situation and to devote more time to our core business.
In particular, Anaba facilitates decision-making: for example, in no time, we can generate a list of all the design offices relevant to a given project and save time on the selection stage.”
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