The Challenge

Donor records, volunteer records, financial documents and other everyday administrative processes were being handled using paper forms and disconnected Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. With many documents requiring multiple signatures, forms could spend weeks moving from one desk to another as they were physically moved between offices to obtain all necessary approvals.
As the new challenges of the COVID pandemic sent workers to home isolation, manual processes became untenable. Bizlink was motivated to digitally transform its operational processes and improve its engagement with clients, donors, volunteers, and other stakeholders.
“We were very manual in terms of our processes, and we started looking at how we could embark on digital transformation to control the processes,” explained Li May Ang, chief executive officer with Bizlink Centre Singapore.

The Solution

Bizlink surveyed the market for potential solution providers that could help optimise its work empowering socially disadvantaged groups. Certified Microsoft Power Platform Partner Total eBiz Solutions (TeBS) was selected to take the mission forward.
“Our goal was to not only bring financial rigour to Bizlink and help them automate their processes,” explained Amit Gupta, head of TeBS’s Digital Innovation Business, “but to help them expand their reach by creating an engagement platform on a single technology stack.”
That platform was Microsoft Dynamics 365, a cloudhosted ecosystem that provided TeBS with all of the capabilities that Bizlink required for its digital transformation.
Over the course of more than two years, TeBS specialists worked closely with Bizlink to redevelop its core capabilities around TeBS’ CareSenz solution – which builds on Dynamics 365, CRM and Business Central as well as Insight Software’s Jet Reports to
support the activities of nonprofit organisations like Bizlink.

TheNeed

Bizlink Centre Singapore’s key goals included:

• Eliminate manual handling of data and documents
• Deliver better governance with internal controls and visibility
• Improve reach and accessibility for remote stakeholders

Crayon Channel supported TeBS throughout the implementation, leveraging its Tech for Good nonprofit licensing program to provide flexible licensing advice and pricing support services that optimised the flexibility of the Dynamics 365 licenses for more than 40 Bizlink users.

The transition started with the construction of a webbased portal for donor and volunteer management, which also helped Bizlink maintain regular communications with stakeholders.
The implementation also included the creation of seamless workflows that link pricing structure, opportunity creation, quoting, quote comparison, ordering, approvals and more. TeBS also built a package based invoicing process for the Bizlink Day Activity Centre.
By streamlining and integrating Bizlink’s core processes, Gupta said, “We can eliminate a lot of manual work, and we can also provide a unified interface to all stakeholders so they can get a unified view of all the stakeholders’ activities.”

The Result

Transitioning Bizlink’s core financial, customer, and stakeholder engagement processes to a single unified platform has been a major improvement to the organisation’s operation. Improved visibility at every stage of the process means that Bizlink can manage a complete view of its stakeholders no matter what kind of relationship
they have with the organisation. This fixes, for example, the previous situation in
which an individual who was a donor, volunteer and customer would be represented multiple times in different systems, documents and spreadsheets.
Back-end integration means that financial, reporting, and other information automatically flow across the platform so that donations and invoices, for example, are
instantly reflected in financial summaries, and receipts can be sent without requiring human intervention.

“There’s a 360-degree view to our customers, volunteers, and potential stakeholders,” Ang said. “For example, if we have a donor who also volunteers with us or buys services with us, we actually have a good view of the relationship in our system.”
This has provided executives with real-time reporting of Bizlink’s activities, ensuring that the organisation’s status is always known and its operations are ready for auditing at any time.