Campfire Interactive Reviews

My use case for Campfire Interactive is primarily for opportunity management and sales forecasting, where we manage our forecast for all of our current production parts and our long-term forecast.

We're able to quickly assess changes in the automotive industry now that we have all our data consolidated. For instance, during the union negotiations a couple of years ago, there was a potential strike. We could quickly estimate the impact of any downtime on our operations, broken down by plant. This ability to plan and respond effectively is extremely useful for us.

We have observed several enhancements to the user interface and the pricing table. On the other hand, there is another module that I haven't been directly involved with: the costing, pricing, and quoting module. The team is continually working to improve this process, providing us with new ways to manage our workflow and process flow. From this perspective, having our cost estimating history and quoting history all consolidated in one system has been a significant improvement for us.

We have dozens of manufacturing plants whose systems do not communicate with each other. Campfire Interactive allowed us to bring all of our data into one platform.

The reporting tools are really useful, and we are able to integrate some other reporting solutions by presenting the data to the Microsoft Power BI platform.

The role-based access control is a useful feature in Campfire Interactive, giving us control over who can see what. However, there are certain processes that require particular users to have overall admin rights, which unfortunately grants them too much authority. We want to refine some of the roles further to ensure that access is appropriate. Our IT team began addressing this issue a few months ago.

I wouldn't say there are any system issues. There are minor enhancements that we request from time to time, and the Campfire team collaborates with us on those. These enhancements are not system issues; rather, they are opportunities for us to learn how to utilize the system more effectively. As a result, we come up with requests to add different cost categories and additional reporting functionality. When I think about the system, I focus less on issues and more on how the Campfire client integrates it into their business processes and trains users to use it correctly. This integration is really the key point; it's all about how the client incorporates the product into their workflows.

Regarding BI Reporting, the standard reporting module within Campfire Interactive primarily gives you an Excel data dump, and while there are some visualizations for creating dashboards, I found those limited for my needs. We started presenting the data to Microsoft Power BI, which is much better for generating the reports I want.

The forecast accuracy of Campfire Interactive has been generally good, with no significant issues. However, there are some improvements we could make to achieve more granular data. For example, we have parts that are common to multiple vehicle programs, but the system does not allow for custom volume settings for each program.

I've used other systems and each has its pros and cons. Campfire advantages include speed and an easy to use price table. One area for improvement would be the integration of actuals from our ERP systems. There is currently no interface within the Campfire application to assist with the alignment of actual ship records with the forecast part records.  

I have been using Campfire Interactive since 2020.

It is stable. I can only think of one issue where some data seemed to be missing. It was reported once in five years.

Campfire Interactive is scalable for our organization. Since we are owned by a private equity company, it’s quite possible that we could acquire another company and merge it into our business. Campfire Interactive is fully capable of scaling up and handling any additional volume we want to put into it.

We have close to 180 people working with this solution.

I would rate the technical support a six out of ten. The response time is great, and the engagement with the Campfire team is also very good. However, the main issue tends to be the timing of deploying new enhancements. It often feels like the delivery of certain updates takes longer than expected. Even when we know we're ready to implement changes, there can be unexpected delays. I think they are trying to harmonize the various environments that their clients have, which makes sense to ensure that everyone is on a more common system instead of each client using a unique custom application. While I understand their efforts, the process does feel slower than it could be.

Neutral

I have used another system and there are pros and cons to each.

It took about six months for me to launch the Opportunity Management and Sales Forecasting System. However, this is highly dependent on the client. A properly prepared team could likely launch it in one to two months. 

Similarly, we could have launched the costing, pricing, and quoting module faster, but we had our own issues to work through at the same time. 

There isn't any maintenance; just typical ongoing data changes.

It's difficult to measure return on investment precisely, but I believe one of the biggest benefits is that it provides the sales team with a tool to develop a strategy on a customer-by-customer basis. This allows us to anticipate our staffing needs effectively. We're able to analyze changes in the forecast, identify which programs are ending, and determine which new programs we should prepare to quote and staff for. Overall, I would say that enhancing our commercial strategy has been a significant advantage, resulting in millions of dollars in additional revenue that our sales team has been able to achieve through effective planning.

Its time to value was immediate on the forecasting side. However, it took us a few years to catch up on the quoting side. I believe that the delays were largely due to our approach and the way we wanted to implement things, which ultimately slowed us down.

I don't know the full scope of our subscriptions for all the modules, but from what I've seen before, it seems fairly expensive. The high cost may drive some potential clients to consider developing a homegrown solution internally.

We do not use any Material Index Management, but we use their pricing table to manage our long-term agreements, which include price reductions year over year. We can budget for those price reductions in the future.

I would recommend Campfire Interactive to other users, but the choice really comes down to the specific use case, the importance of having built-in interfaces to manage your ship data, and how important it is to be able to give different programs different take-rates. 

Overall, I would rate Campfire Interactive an eight out of ten.

My main use case at my company, Gentherm, is the OMSF, the Opportunity Management Sales Forecasting tool. It seems great, and we are launching it right now while doing our current RFC1 with it. It appears to be much quicker than our previous process. I really like that it updates instantaneously. Before, people made their changes in SAP and then I had to download the data and re-upload it to a different system, which took the entire day. Now, account managers have access to reports where they can see their own data instantaneously, which has been really beneficial.

From my perspective as an admin user, I like the fact that I am able to get data out much quicker and it is much easier to use than SAP. From my colleagues' perspective as actual users and key account managers, they appreciate it because it is much quicker than moving around in SAP. They can copy an opportunity and all that data gets transferred over, allowing them to update it extremely quickly.

The rule-based access control of Campfire Interactive is excellent. We set up a bunch of different levels of what they can see. This was really important for GDPR compliance for our European colleagues regarding what data would be allowed to be seen by whom. We could set up access where key account managers are only able to see their relevant forecasts while giving access to a CBU leader who can see all of the people who report into them, and someone like an SVP can see everybody. Having that rule-based permission is really great.

The forecast accuracy of Campfire Interactive is good. It is all dependent on the data you put into the system, but there are certainly no issues with FX translation or incorrect data somehow showing up. Whatever data you put in the system is accurately reflected when you pull the report.

The biggest advantage I have seen with Campfire Interactive versus our previous system, SAP, is the speed to make an opportunity. Even going through the CPQ process, you can do it much faster having it all in one system. Being able to pull reports as an admin, I can pull reports on when people have made changes, which makes it much easier if someone makes a mistake or if I need to understand why certain data is present. We can go in and look at version history. Monthly we run a locked version so we can very easily compare what has changed month over month if there have been drastic changes. In our previous system, I would have various downloads of SAP and someone would ask me what changed, and I would be looking through my Excel download files trying to find a file with the two projects I could compare. Now, I just go into Campfire Interactive, go to reports, include frozen, and I can select whatever months I want and compare that exact project over multiple times. That is way quicker and way easier to use. I like the functionality of being able to pull reports right from the system, and data accuracy is great.

Enhancements for Campfire Interactive would be more reporting, better reporting, and better looking reporting. When you have an enterprise license to Power BI and people who build in Power BI, Power BI is just the top tier, so it is tough to really compare anything to that.

I have been working with Campfire Interactive for over two years now.

I have not run into any stability issues. The team does a really good job on letting us know when the system is going to be down for maintenance. There have been no times where it has been down without our knowledge or understanding of why.

Scaling it up has been seamless. We started out with nobody from the sales team and then brought in a couple of people from the sales team who are our top performers. Now it is global for our company, with every single person in sales using the system today.

Customer service is great. The person I work with the most is Upender Gill, who is excellent. He is a young person who I have worked with since the beginning. We have his phone number and I can text him saying I need to hop on a call for five minutes to explain something, and he is always available even while juggling multiple projects. Dan, who is his boss, is also great and has been at the company for over 15 years. He is very knowledgeable about all of these implementations. Customer service is definitely second to none, and because they are local, we saw them once a week for about a year.

Positive

I was not at the company when they were doing the initial evaluation of Campfire Interactive. They did look at two different Campfire Interactive-like programs, but I am not sure of the exact reasoning for why we went with Campfire Interactive. Them being local was probably a definite reason instead of a bigger, more global company.

We left SAP because it is a very archaic system. It is difficult to move around, difficult to export data, and has slow version history and load times. When I would do exports of the entire company's data, it would easily take ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes of just spinning. Campfire Interactive can get the exact same data in less than sixty seconds. The move was just a natural business progression.

Deployment was done in-house.

The implementation team was great. Because they are local to Ann Arbor and we are in Novi, they were at our office at least once a week for probably a year total, going over things and having meetings. It was face-to-face, and everybody was very involved.

It is nice that they are a smaller company where you get that kind of personalized attention. You see the same people week in and week out, and there are not a lot of big personnel changes. While they are still big enough to have done implementations with other multi-billion dollar valued companies, they were able to come in and give us some best practices they have seen. The people doing the implementation on our side had not been there for previous implementations, so they were able to guide us on some of the best practices.

We had one implementation that we ended up stopping due to C-suite leadership changes. We basically got a new CEO and CFO, so we stopped for a while. Realistically, the implementation probably took about nine months for the OMSF.

We are going through our RFC1, which is our first rolling forecast of the year. It is certainly much quicker. It is at least fifty percent faster for key account managers to go in and update all their projects and opportunities, and then for us to get the data and make management reporting for it.

We are currently going through some organizational adjustments, so there would be things coming up regarding how Campfire Interactive is going to be used. We are going to integrate Campfire Interactive data into our current Power BI system, so then our Power BI is going to get much better, but I do not have super concrete examples right now of that.

Campfire Interactive has always been very open with their development timelines. They have been constantly putting out new things and new updates. Even if we have suggestions or needs they cannot fix now, it is not a never. It is always that they can put this on the development timeline and in phase two or three months they can have it done. Everything that we have needed from them, they have more than provided.

The deployment model is on-premise. Maintaining data quality and data integrity and being able to report is everything.

The much quicker RFC and the ability for anybody to go in and have their changes reflected in the system immediately makes a significant difference. They are able to see how their sales are decreasing year over year when they should be increasing. They can go in and look at these opportunities, adjust either the volume or the price of these opportunities, and then see what the data looks like now. That makes it much easier for the account managers as opposed to me pulling all the data from SAP every couple of days and making large reports for them to filter themselves. We are certainly already increasing efficiencies.

The main challenge from what we had to go through is more so internal alignment. If you have a regional structure, getting alignment between the regions of what they want and what they desire out of the system is important. The slowdowns we had were not due to Campfire Interactive being unable to do something. They were due to internal company conflicts of what we wanted. I would rate this review as a ten overall.

The main use for Campfire Interactive for Gentherm is budgeting purposes, capturing volumes, sales, take rates, opportunities, and current parts that are in production, and following them through. With volume increases, I will update Campfire Interactive to understand the total sales for the program project.

I would use Campfire Interactive for one of my projects; for example, if I have an RFQ and a good opportunity for that to be awarded. I will log those parts into Campfire Interactive. I will add volume, SOP (start of production), and end of production and capture take rate and volume to understand what my total sales are for that program.

Campfire Interactive provides a good, quick, web-based visualization of all the programs, projects, OEMs, and tiers that I am managing. It is a quick view of my sales for the month, year, and the whole program as well.

It is easy to manage and edit my opportunities in Campfire Interactive. If there are any changes, whether that is removing or adding parts, adding volume, updating take rates, adding new opportunities, or new parts, the best feature I like is the mass updates capability. I can download all my projects or one project to an Excel file, make my updates on that Excel file within one tab, and then re-upload it in a matter of minutes. That is the number one feature I feel is going to be the easiest to use and update without taking a lot of time. Another feature is creating the opportunity itself, which is extremely easy and extremely quick. Once I have one opportunity in there, it is even quicker to make a copy of that opportunity to add another one if necessary. For example, if I have 10 parts under a program, each one of those parts will be an opportunity. When I create the first opportunity in that program for one part, creating the second, third, fourth, all the way to the tenth is made extremely convenient and extremely quick by the copy feature. The efficiency and quickness of it is valuable for me so I can get it done and move on to new things.

Campfire Interactive is going to be a huge success for Gentherm. Once my sales team gets using it, they are going to flow very quickly with it. Creating the opportunity is very easy and can be done in a matter of minutes. Copying opportunities and creating another one from the initial one is just as quick. The mass updates, the download of the Excel file of all my programs and projects, and the mass updates I can make within that Excel file and then upload it right back into Campfire Interactive is going to save me personally a ton of time. The web-based system is quick. Once I log on and click a specific project, it takes me immediately there. There is no hourglass thinking and then loading. It is immediate. Once I click, I am there. I can start with my updates, save it, and then move on to the next without having to wait a long period of time. I can now get that done quicker and move on to other good things. The system is very easy to understand and not complicated. It is very user-friendly. I do not have to go to a ton of different screens to get what I need done from a sales standpoint, which I am really looking forward to moving forward.

Campfire Interactive gives me a good glimpse on my KPIs and revenues, not only for one part, but for the whole program. I can do it for all my programs for each one of my customers and see a nice visualization of everything from my average volume, my average revenue, sales, gross margin, the number of parts, and my EOP and SOP dates. If an OEM extends an end of production date, I can easily go in there, make a couple of clicks, get that updated, and then understand what my revenue is going to be with that update. The same applies with the volume; it is all live. As I update my take rates, I immediately see what that impact is going to be on my volume. If I have a specific volume I am trying to achieve, I can adjust my take rates accordingly and see the updates live in real-time, which is fantastic for me. I do not have to do any calculations with a calculator or anything else. I can see it all live in Campfire Interactive, which is very helpful, especially being in sales and always being very busy. I can do all that real quick, save it, and move on to the next. Time-saving is probably my number one feature I love with Campfire Interactive.

Campfire Interactive impacted my organization. First is having web-based functionality. Web-based is quicker, more efficient, and user-friendly. It makes a salesperson's life a lot easier because I can make the updates and they happen instantly, and then I can move on to the next. From a company standpoint and an organization standpoint, from an accounting, sales, and finance perspective, the downloads of the mass data so I can share with executive management is very quick and easy. The visualization is visually appealing so I am not looking through a bunch of Excel tabs with a lot of data. It is clear. I can see the numbers specifically on an Excel sheet, on a bar graph, or a pie chart, and they make it very appealing for the eyes and user-friendly. Once my team takes off with Campfire Interactive at Gentherm after using it, I think it is just going to flow nicely with the information that has to go to our executive management. The people who have already worked on this for a long time with the Campfire Interactive team have been fantastic assisting every step of the way, and I have only heard positive feedback on how Campfire Interactive will change how I share data and information to management and executive management.

What is nice is working with the Campfire Interactive team. If I see concerns or updates that need to be made, they are making it live and in real-time for me. As I am learning more about Campfire Interactive and using it and getting feedback from my team, Campfire Interactive is being responsive and quick, and they are implementing the changes I want to accommodate my teams and specific departments from accounting, sales, finance, and sales. They are gearing it to what I need. It probably can be better for sure, but as of now, they are adapting to what I need to make my life better. I do not see any improvements now. There might be more in the future that I see, but I am pretty confident once I discuss whatever changes or updates I need with Campfire Interactive, they are going to make it immediately as they have so far today.

The only improvement I see from a Gentherm-specific update or improvement would be when I have an opportunity and the customer extends the end of production, for example, by one year. I want to be able to capture the additional revenue specific for that one year. For example, if an end of production is extended from 2026 to 2027, I want to be able to capture what that additional revenue is going to be in that one opportunity without having to create another. I proposed this to Dan Stroble at Campfire Interactive and he said it is one hundred percent doable and they are working to make that feature put in Campfire Interactive for me. That is really the only change I have that I would want, but they are already on top of it, which is fantastic.

I have been using Campfire Interactive just in the setup mode for Gentherm for roughly about a year.

Campfire Interactive was deployed pretty efficiently within Gentherm. I had a lot of training and a lot of implementation with the core team at Gentherm working with Campfire Interactive and we had a week of training, which I just ended this week, and it was efficient. There were some questions from the core team in which I posed to Campfire Interactive and I am making specific updates if necessary, but the main thing is my team just needs to get used to the system and once they do, they will flow accordingly.

The accuracy has helped my organization save time and cost. All of my employees have salaries and the more time I spend on printing data out or trying to get data, the more it costs for the company. So right there, it is beneficial for me.

I do not have any specific metrics. I am just using it based on time and how quick it is to pull the information I need to show management.

Campfire Interactive is an efficient solution, and the key part of it is when I have suggestions, Campfire Interactive implements them, and that is fantastic. To me, that is what puts Campfire Interactive in the higher range from a one to ten scale. I would rate Campfire Interactive as an eight out of ten because I think that is a good number, but I would say eight to ten would be sufficient anywhere around there. The number one thing is when I have suggestions, they implement it immediately for me. I give Campfire Interactive an overall rating of eight.

Campfire Interactive is used for revenue forecasting for our powertrain division. Campfire Interactive is utilized for all of our plants to analyze revenue projections for the entire group and also to keep track of targets and other opportunities.

Excellent customer service is one of the best features Campfire Interactive offers. The team is always available to diagnose any issues, respond, and they respond quickly.

The forecasting tools in Campfire Interactive allow us to do something that has never been done before at Magna, specifically in the powertrain division, which is to have a forecast that we could use from the beginning to the end of the year. In the past, we have had one-time input, and then that was it. This has been a very good experience from the powertrain side.

Campfire Interactive has positively impacted our organization by allowing us to visualize and see in real-time our revenue projection by customer or group, which was something that has never been done in the past on a periodic basis.

The accuracy of forecast since using Campfire Interactive is a really big positive. In the past, different divisions were using different volumes, which made it impossible to reconcile. Now everybody is using one set of numbers, and this has helped us improve our revenue forecasting projections by 50%.

One area where Campfire Interactive can improve is their reporting tool, as I believe that area is very weak at the moment.

I would rate it an eight because improving the reporting functionality and also the user interface could get a higher score from me.

Campfire Interactive has been used for just over eight years.

Campfire Interactive is stable.

I believe there is a lot of scalability in Campfire Interactive. From our perspective, we only use one part of the modules they offer, so I cannot really comment on how beneficial the other modules would be, but I am pretty sure that they would be as effective as the OMS F.

Excellent customer service is one of the best features Campfire Interactive offers. The team is always available to diagnose any issues, respond, and they respond quickly.

Customer support for Campfire Interactive is excellent. There are times when we do not get an answer immediately or we are unaware of where our issue is at, but I think they have improved immensely on that portion.

Positive

Excel was previously used, and the reason we switched is that everybody was using different volume sets, which caused impossible reconciliations to be done.

Integration with Campfire Interactive has been very easy, after meeting some specifics to export and import into our main forecasting system. Ease of use is high because the system is pretty intuitive, so we are very pleased.

Positive results were seen immediately after implementing Campfire Interactive.

I did work with Campfire Interactive's in-house implementation team, and I was the main person in the implementation phase. My experience with them was very positive, even though there were some chaotic times. We found a way to manage and overcome any obstacles, and as mentioned earlier, the customer service and their willingness to get things done correctly was very impressive.

The implementation took about one year, as it was a very complex implementation that took a lot of effort, and I was very impressed.

There has been a return on investment because we have seen fewer mistakes, fewer errors, and more accurate information, which leads to better decision making.

My experience with Campfire Interactive regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing was very positive. I was not very much involved in that, but there were no issues, and it was done quickly and to both parties' mutual agreement.

Several other options were evaluated before choosing Campfire Interactive, which I will not name.

Processes and the accuracy of those processes are very important because without them, it would not work for a big company like Magna or any company. I would highly recommend the Opportunity Management and Sales Forecasting, OMS F, module from Campfire Interactive to a colleague at another organization evaluating project management or opportunity software solutions because the system is a lifesaver if you are trying to create important information used by sales or other functionalities in the organization, and also to keep track of any outstanding quotes and opportunities you may have. This is a huge benefit. Campfire Interactive should definitely be chosen, as they will work with you, and you will be happy. I would rate this review an eight overall.

We are using the OMSF module, which is the revenue planning module.

The forecast accuracy of Campfire Interactive works effectively. Their role-based access controls are good.

The issue we are having with Campfire Interactive is that it is basically seen as a standalone system and our company is in the process of trying to implement a full company system, a full process system with Oracle. They are working with Oracle and I have to be the go-between, because Oracle cannot do what Campfire Interactive can do. They tend to tell our management that they can, so I have to defend Campfire Interactive. I would appreciate clearer communication on how I might do that with my company to highlight what Campfire Interactive does. I wish there was a bridge between Campfire Interactive and Oracle. We have been working on that, but I wish that was something that was already developed.

I have been using Campfire Interactive since 2012.

The stability is good. We have had a couple things we have had to address such as when the cube refreshes and there was another process running. Something might have changed and I was unaware of that, so it would crash the system. I could reach out to Kalash or one of the other support people and they would reboot the system.

Our IT director at my company has also taken over the support of Campfire Interactive internally. Now they are getting brought up to speed so I do not always have to contact Campfire Interactive. Sometimes I can have them reboot it internally.

Currently, it is just my team that uses it. There are five or six of us. Because Campfire Interactive is seen as a standalone system, I do not think that it would be scalable at this point within my company. I do not think it would go much further if it remains a standalone system.

I directly work with our contact Kalash. That is quite helpful because I am able to call, text, email, or message him on Teams, which is a very unique feature of Campfire Interactive that I have a direct line of support versus submitting a help desk ticket or calling a 1-800 number. The support quality and speed is good, as you get that one-on-one help. I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

I used to work at a company that had an in-house version of what Campfire Interactive does. It was not from an outside vendor but was built in-house, and it performed what Campfire Interactive does.

We saw the benefits of Campfire Interactive immediately after we started using it in this organization because I had used similar software before, so we knew what we were looking for, which is why we got Campfire Interactive.

The initial deployment was easy. We had a great implementation.

In terms of maintenance, one great aspect of Campfire Interactive is that I serve as the administrator. This means I have the ability to adjust the structure, add attributes, and manage everything largely on my own.

I worked with the in-house implementation team because my prior boss had a relationship with Pradeep who was the owner of Campfire Interactive. He contacted my boss and they were able to implement Campfire Interactive in two weeks, which was a very quick time frame. We received special attention from Pradeep and then we had a consultant that we worked with. He was part of their implementation or onboarding, but it was just a single person that helped us get our data set up in Campfire Interactive. From my end, two people were required for the deployment, myself and my boss.

My company is in a unique situation because we have had the product for so long. We got grandfathered into some very good pricing. The pricing that my company has currently is very good, but I think it is quite different from what others have in the current structure, because they have changed it. We had a one-time fee and now I think they are on a subscription model.

I would rate Campfire Interactive a solid eight out of ten.

My main use case for Campfire Interactive is for forecasting and quote modeling.

For forecasting and quote modeling in my day-to-day work using Campfire Interactive, I take what we have currently in production, create dashboards, do yearly analysis based on said programs from data uploads, and can give us a picture of what our future forecast could be with our sales and what areas we need to define to improve on.

Campfire Interactive paints a better picture in terms of modeling with graphs instead of having to manually do Excel reports, and it generates twice the data at a better speed.

The best features that Campfire Interactive offers are visualization, automation, and organization.

Out of visualization, automation, and organization, I find myself relying on automation for sure, as everything is about speed and organization, and it all comes from automation instead of doing manual legwork.

Regarding the features of Campfire Interactive, it is an ongoing process, so I cannot say for now as it is still too early for something I wish I could use more or a feature I just discovered.

Campfire Interactive has positively impacted my organization through automation; it makes everything more simple. Any data charts, graphs, or projections that we want to make regarding financials or work that we create in our industry gives us a clear picture of what we currently do and areas that we want to improve on.

As for improvements for Campfire Interactive, I am not sure about any pain points; everything seems to be an ongoing improvement, so there has not been a full denial, and there has always been workarounds for how Campfire can implement new solutions to any problems that we may have.

Regarding needed improvements, key integration on the interface could help, as I know that could take a lot of coding in the background, but it seems entirely different from its other CPQ module for us.

I have been using Campfire Interactive for a year now.

Campfire Interactive is stable, as I have not seen anything concerning, and when system updates are needed, they usually schedule it ahead of time to notify you before anything happens.

Scalability is not something for me as a customer to decide; it has to be more so on Campfire Interactive's end. They usually try to implement new workarounds for the system and are open to their customers' ideas of what they can implement for their software.

The customer support at Campfire Interactive is amazing, a 10 out of 10, as the team members that have been with us, Dan Stoll and Upender Gill, have been nothing short of amazing. They are always here for us and want to have meetings and lunches, and they do anything to support us while always trying to clear up our data and make us a priority.

I previously used another solution that was good at the time, but it did not represent data sets or create easy data visualization through graphs or models for projections when I had quarterly meetings or annual updates with all the directors and where we stand as a company. Campfire Interactive automates all our data sets compared to the other software.

It took approximately two to three months to implement the solution with Campfire Interactive's in-house implementation team's assistance. Depending on where we are as a company, it is an ongoing process, but from the original standpoint of training, from when we were first introduced to being uploaded with data and having a basic preset of a module or Campfire Interactive itself, I would say around three months.

I worked with Campfire Interactive's in-house implementation team, specifically with Dan Stoll and Upender Gill, and they have been nothing but great to us. I have no complaints about them, as they are great from start to finish and still to this day are working with us through changes with Campfire Interactive.

We still have not seen a return on investment because we are not fully implemented; we are still using two software systems and making the transition probably within the next month, so I cannot say for sure right now as that is still an ongoing process.

I did not have to deal with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Campfire Interactive.

Before choosing Campfire Interactive, I did not evaluate other options because we already had software that we purchased.

Regarding the opportunity management and sales forecasting module, I would tell a colleague at another organization that it comes down to automation, organization, and visualization, as Campfire Interactive gives great models and dashboards and can provide different pictures of different data sets based on your needs.

If you are looking into using Campfire Interactive, my advice is that if you are looking at a forecasting system or software, Campfire Interactive is the way to go.

Regarding additional thoughts about Campfire Interactive, I am glad that they are open to ideas and constantly listening to their customers to improve, and I hope to see significant changes in the future to continuously improve for both ends. I would rate this review an 8 out of 10.

Building a sales forecasting and quote management tool is the main use case for Campfire Interactive. The primary use case for me is to export reports of the current forecast and use that to perform analysis and see the progress of our current forecasting, what we have in our pipeline, and what our new projects are.

Campfire Interactive allows sales teams to manage forecasting in a more efficient, streamlined way, and the quoting portion flows directly into the sales forecasting, which allows for better data security and data accuracy for our sales forecasting and quote management in my day-to-day work.

The best features Campfire Interactive offers are the straightforward sales forecasting capability and its ability to serve as a one-stop shop for both forecasting and quoting.

What makes Campfire Interactive's sales forecasting feature stand out for me is that it is browser-based, making it a unified program solution for forecasting, viewing actuals, analyzing short-term trends, and using that information to create long-term strategies.

Campfire Interactive has positively impacted our organization by bringing new change to how we approach our forecasting processes and by enabling us to build a global process.

Since using Campfire Interactive, there have been improvements in efficiency, and each sales person can manage their own forecast in a more streamlined manner.

Communication is important when discussing how Campfire Interactive can be improved.

Another potential improvement would be more thorough testing on the Campfire side before features are released to customers.

We have been using and working with Campfire Interactive for approximately two years.

Campfire Interactive is stable.

Campfire Interactive demonstrates good scalability with efficient performance.

I experienced great customer support with Campfire Interactive, as I had easy access to the project manager and the Campfire team, along with constant collaboration.

Positive

We previously used SAP and decided to switch in order to obtain a more efficient solution.

I was not involved in the pricing, setup cost, and licensing aspects of the integration.

There is definitely a return on investment in terms of time saved.

The Power BI report is very important because it provides clarity that we may not see in our own reports regarding Campfire Interactive's material index management and integrated business intelligence reporting.

Campfire Interactive's forecast accuracy is high and delivered without any delay or inaccurate numbers.

Although we do not have metrics at this time, the forecast accuracy has contributed to cost savings for our organization.

Campfire Interactive's ability to manage data through business processes and workflows is important for our organization because it creates a closed loop that allows us to always trace information back to its original source.

The Opportunity Management and Sales Forecasting module is a valuable tool that Campfire can customize to meet your company's specific needs, which is a very nice feature.

My advice to others considering Campfire Interactive is that you should thoroughly understand the tool and ask as many questions as possible to the Campfire team from the start.

I would rate this review a perfect ten out of ten.

The primary use case for Campfire Interactive is for tracking and sales forecasting for the automotive industry, specifically for all the products that our company sells to that market.

When I look at project management, I'm looking at having an engineer or a program manager or somebody who has dates and deliverables and milestones for developing a part, designing it, tooling up for it, doing sample parts, doing production runs, and then going into production. That's what I consider to be project management. We do not use Campfire Interactive for any of those tools.

At the time we launched Campfire Interactive in 2012, we were three companies coming together with three different systems. It took some time to build the infrastructure to populate the Campfire Interactive tool, which was about a three to six-month process. As we went through each of our manufacturing plants' implementations, it took additional time. The overall time to launch was about 2 years. It was a very time-intensive process because we could not launch all 12 plants at the same time. We were able to realize its benefits or acknowledge the benefits at the time of the development to define what attributes our company needed within the Campfire Interactive tool, along with the outputs that came from it once we started to report on the data. The standardized work that we had and the master data management that we had were extremely valuable, almost immediately.

When it comes to opportunity management and sales forecasting, I have recommended Campfire Interactive to at least 10 companies over my career, including some of the largest Tier 1 automotive customer suppliers in the world. Different companies have adopted different aspects of Campfire Interactive and have been happy with the solution. In general, I would highly recommend their solution.

The overall forecast accuracy is dependent upon the accuracy of the inputs into their system. They're not forecasting experts, they're just a software tool. In terms of the mathematics or the algorithms that are used within the Campfire Interactive tool, the tool works very well.

I've had recent discussions with the leadership team at Campfire Interactive about several issues. They're fully aware of my displeasure with certain things. Some concerns are not related to the tool itself, although there are some aspects that could be better with the tool. The issues are more related to technical service, specifically when we have an issue or problem with the tool, the communication gap, and the follow-through on issues that need improvement. They're fully aware of that concern, and they're doing things to address it.

From a technical standpoint, there are some limitations within the tool that are somewhat out of Campfire Interactive's control because it's a complicated industry to try and have one solution that fits all vendors. There are times when we go to execute reports from their system, and the data does not generate as expected. When that happens, we have to inform the Campfire Interactive IT or Support group what the failure is. They have to research and come back to us. In the meantime, we have 2, 4, 6, maybe 12 hours of downtime where people around the world are trying to use the system. Though it affects less than 50 people, these instances are frustrating.

I've been using Campfire Interactive since 2012.

The stability of Campfire Interactive has mostly been good. There have been some instances where we've reached a capacity issue or a memory issue with the size of the server or the space on the server that's been allocated to the Campfire Interactive tool. Some of that falls on Campfire Interactive in making sure that we're aware of the limitations or the requirements. Some of that also falls on our own IT organization to manage those things effectively. In general, there haven't been many crashes. If there is something that they feel is a bug or needs a fix that needs to be pushed through, we're able to work with them effectively to schedule those things and not be disruptive to the business.

We started off with about a dozen different forecasts that we were managing 12-13 years ago. We're up to about 20 now, so we've almost doubled some of the work that we do, or the complexity. There haven't been any issues with that. If we go the route that I'm hoping we do, through the proposal I mentioned earlier, and we merge with this other company, and Campfire Interactive gets adopted by their organization as well, I don't have any concerns about scaling up for that. The concerns are more about implementation than scalability.

For technical support, there are two aspects to consider. The effectiveness of communication, follow-up, timely support, not relying upon only one or two people, and having a team of people. In that regard, I would give them a five. When it comes to the actual technical knowledge and solutions of the tool and how to go about resolving the issues themselves, I would give them an eight out of ten.

Neutral

Prior to adopting Campfire Interactive, there were three different companies or divisions coming together. The tool being used was a homegrown, internally-developed software solution. There were some features about the original, homegrown project that could not be transferred or translated into the Campfire Interactive solution due to too much complexity in the original solution. However, the majority of the rules and capabilities that we needed were solved by Campfire Interactive.

I worked for a period of 3 years outside of this company at a different automotive supplier where I introduced Campfire Interactive to the organization. We went through an implementation from scratch. At this other company, we decided to implement two systems: sales forecasting and the quoting tool, which they refer to as business processing. That was a very painful development process. Some of it was self-inflicted, but much of it was a challenge for resources from Campfire Interactive that could execute the needs of that company. I left that company in 2022, and as of that time, that module had still not been implemented after 2 years. It's my understanding that while some features of that tool were eventually adopted, most of the tool was decided to be scrapped because it didn't work to the company's needs.

I don't get too involved in the overall scope of the pricing. I know what it costs generally, though I'm not an IT system or cost evaluator to say that's good or bad. We had a negotiation with them back in March of this year to extend our contract for 1 year. They were willing to work with us to negotiate different terms and a different cost of production. They were asking for a certain percentage increase, and we said that was not acceptable. They were willing to settle on a different number.

We only did a 1 year contract, as opposed to a longer term, because our organization is in the process of merging with another company, which has a completely different tool or system that they use for the same purpose. We are going through an evaluation process this summer to determine if we continue with Campfire Interactive or if we go a different route. We were very transparent with them in February and March to communicate that this change was going to happen in our business. It was something that was publicly announced, so it wasn't confidential in any way. They know that for the next 6 months, perhaps maybe 9 months, they have to prove that their capabilities are worth keeping compared to the alternative solution.

Setting aside some of the IT Support issues that I've mentioned, which I know that they're working on, I would rate Campfire Interactive an eight overall for everything.

We use it primarily to project our global sales forecast. They offer several solutions, but we only utilize the opportunity management system. Sales forecasting is the main focus, complemented by what we call a hunting list. Essentially, we examine the targets for the upcoming years, which are part of the forecast. So, sales forecasting is our primary use case.

We implemented the software shortly before COVID happened. Before that, everything we did was Excel-based or used another system. Notably during a global event like COVID, our previous methods would have taken weeks for forecasting. Let's assume across the globe we saw a 20% decline in vehicle volume. People would have had to go in and make the modifications, and then we would have had to globally consolidate all this information again. It would have taken weeks to make an adjustment to project the new forecast based on what was happening with COVID. With the new system, using the latest IHS information, projections became instantaneous. We were able to project what was going on in the market and see the decline in volume globally, and within hours.

We are Chinese-owned, and there are a lot of investment opportunities in our company. We constantly get asked questions about the forecast, target, bookings, and so on and so forth. We have about 150 users in the system around the globe, and because everybody is using the system globally, it is much easier to consolidate that data. Previously, it was sometimes on people's personal computers, and we would have had to ask everybody individually. Because of the standardization and the global nature of the product, we are now able to get to global information based on the executive questions in a few days, and sometimes in hours. That is a big benefit. For example, we can see what's going on in Japan, so they maintain the opportunities. We give the guidelines globally for how they have to maintain the opportunities and when they have to maintain them. I can now go into the system and see that people do their work, that they go in, that they really change, and pull that information out at any time.

We now have a lot more standardization which is beneficial. We do see the same information globally.

It is not the tool itself that ensures accuracy, but rather the data we input into the system. The combination Campfire uses for the automotive sector, particularly the IHS forecast, offers unique predictive capabilities. Few companies provide this. This is why we do not use our ERP system, SAP, for forecasting. Their reliance on EDI limits forecasts to six to twelve months, whereas Campfire provides longer forecast periods.

I appreciate the flexibility of the company more than any specific software feature. I have worked with SAP and other software providers before, and since it is still a smaller company, there is a very personal exchange. If we have a simple need that does not require coding, the company is willing to make changes overnight or even within hours. They are truly flexible and customer-oriented.

I recently discussed with them the need for better KPI measurements in the automotive world. A big KPI in the automotive world is the bookings of the future years, and we measure that not in annual revenue but in the lifetime of any given vehicle. Let's say, on average, a vehicle is in the market for five years, so we add up the five years of revenue that is generated with that vehicle. Every region and every account has targets where they have to say, "I'm going to source amount x in the upcoming year." This LOP calculation is not easily done because IHS also has limitations, so right now, it only projects out till 2031 or 2032. For instance, if we launch a program in 2028 that starts in 2030, only two years of data can be seen, and I cannot calculate the life of program revenue. We discussed it with them. They are looking into AI to make longer projections possible and to also improve the quality of the data that we have in the system to calculate this LOP based on historical data or IHS information.

They had people who trained our staff, and some people, even though located in the US, were working 24/7 to accommodate our needs in Asia or Europe. These same people also had to implement the system and not just train, which I thought was a bit too much for people to handle. I told them that it would be beneficial to have someone in Asia or Europe to do those types of training during the time when those regions are working. They can have a hotline for simple questions. Sometimes, simple questions disrupt complex tasks. Having dedicated resources for basic inquiries could alleviate this issue. Additionally, it could be beneficial to have training videos within the system to handle routine questions instead of constantly bugging the people who are supposed to do way more complex things than that.

I have been using it for almost six years. It will be six years in April.

More modules are available that could enhance the system significantly for our company. However, due to our current financial situation, we are not opting to purchase additional software. The existing modules make a lot of sense, and we can add them at any time.

Overall, customer service is good. However, the workforce is relatively small, especially the team developing and rolling out the software. They are expanding into India to find new hires. When they secure many new contracts, the staff can be stretched thin to meet deadlines. Sometimes, it took longer than expected to fulfill promises. Considering the tool's cost and the times they provided additional development support at no extra cost, we could not complain. However, companies with higher demands might encounter issues.

Positive

I reviewed an alternative a few months ago during contract negotiations, but I have not used any other.

Every software rollout is difficult, and we still have difficulties, but that is not a Campfire issue. It is an overall acceptance issue and cultural issue, but the support that they gave us for the implementation was outstanding.

In the beginning, it took us several steps just to run a report. Although the system was not used to its full capacity early on, within three to four months, it became more stable. By the second year, the budget process was significantly more stable. We still improve the system. That will always be the case because we are trying to make it better and better train the people who use the system. Overall, in a year, it was relatively stable.

Initially, more people were involved, some of whom had worked for my company before transitioning to Campfire. These two gentlemen remained on the team to support us consistently. Over time, additional people were added in high-level roles to regularly check in on progress. 

They do maintenance on their end, so we do not have any IT people working. We used to have somebody who was working with Campfire on our side, but now, IT involvement is required only as needed. Although we do not have dedicated IT personnel working regularly with Campfire, connections are made with our IT team as necessary, such as for setting up interfaces with our PLM system. We need our IT people to establish that exchange of data.

Compared to everything else I have seen, it is very fair.

I would definitely recommend using this solution and also suggest evaluating other options to ensure the best fit. Overall, I would recommend it. The implementation was supported by a substantial team from Campfire. However, with many new customers, they occasionally became overwhelmed, leading to slowdowns due to the busy workforce. Overall, my experience has been positive.

I would rate Campfire Interactive an eight out of ten.

We're using Campfire Interactive for opportunity management.

The forecast accuracy of Campfire Interactive is extremely good. We compared it to our internal sales forecast, and once everything was properly configured, it matched very closely.

The dashboard will enhance our ability to present to management, senior leadership, and shareholders through dashboards that instantly show where we stand with booked sales, targeted sales, replacement business, and additional new opportunities. Previously, using Excel made this process more complicated and time-consuming.

Campfire Interactive’s ability to manage data through business processes and workflows is crucial for our organization.

Campfire Interactive’s ability to provide flexibility and configurability in managing data based on our organizational needs is good. I would rate it an eight out of ten for that.

I appreciate the dashboard features and widget features of Campfire Interactive because it has the ability to consolidate data in bar graphs or pie charts, making it very easy to visualize the situation with new opportunities. 

The Campfire team was able to tweak everything that we felt needed improvement to better suit our needs.

One aspect that could be simplified with Campfire Interactive is the process of entering opportunities into the portal. Currently, if we receive a quotation for 20 parts, we can enter one opportunity in our homegrown system that allows us to list all 20 parts within that single opportunity, but Campfire Interactive requires creating separate opportunities for each part. That's the only downfall I observe.

We started using Campfire Interactive around January of this year, approximately five months ago. The actual solid usage has been about a month and a half to two months at most.

The stability of Campfire Interactive rates as a ten out of ten. It is very stable.

In terms of scalability, Campfire Interactive rates as either a nine out of ten.

We currently have ten seats for Campfire Interactive, shared between the sales team and business development team, with potential needs for expansion in the future.

I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

We used our internal home grown system prior to switching to CampFire OMSF.

It's moderate in terms of complexity. The implementation took approximately three months. While we're not fully up to speed, progress is steady.

It requires minimal maintenance, with updates occurring approximately once a month.

Campfire Interactive's in-house implementation team is excellent. They are thorough, answer all questions, and come prepared.

Campfire Interactive has already helped save time and indirectly save costs since we aren't paying people to compile data and create pie charts. Though we haven't quantified these savings yet, the time savings will eventually show a direct correlation to cost reduction.

Each quarter, we used to spend three to four days compiling information for presentations. Now, instead of doing it quarterly, we can do it monthly. Previously, our younger team members would spend three to four days on data entry to compile information that we can now access instantly with Campfire Interactive.

Campfire Interactive is on the expensive side.

The opportunity management sales forecasting is effective, though we're still navigating the learning curve and launch phase. The Campfire Interactive team has been accommodating in making tweaks to adapt it to our needs. It's becoming equivalent to our homegrown system and surpasses it due to the dashboard capabilities.

At this point, it's still fairly new to us, but I would recommend Campfire Interactive to other users based on its professional appearance and ease of data entry.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.