Nitori Co., Ltd.

Matsuo

To improve this situation, a business reform project was launched within the department in 2019. We began considering the digitalization of our internal operations, including system upgrades, and aimed to improve sales efficiency for both our own and other companies.

Previously, sales representatives had to manually input corporate information into our database, which was time-consuming and lacked high accuracy.

The executive in charge of the project at the time also faced challenges, stating, "Too much time is being spent on customer research," and "We cannot deny the opportunity loss caused by individual-dependent sales methods, and we are not securing enough time to engage with the customers we truly need to focus on."

Matsuo

We compared uSonar with services from two other companies, but uSonar was the only one that agreed to our essential requirement of integrating with our in-house developed system.

uSonar's "uSonar/SideSonar" is a service with a proven track record of integration with various SFA tools, including Salesforce. However, this case involved integration with a proprietary system rather than an existing SFA. Despite this, we were very pleased that they were willing to respond with such flexibility.

Matsuo

The Business Division's ideal system concept was translated into a concrete project by the Business Reform Team. While we advanced our own system development, we initiated the integration once the API for uSonar/SideSonar was ready. After repeated testing and about six months of coordination between both companies, we successfully achieved the integration.

Matsuo

In particular, our sales representatives have expressed their satisfaction, stating that the time previously spent on data entry and searching has been significantly reduced and that information is now much easier to find. It seems the system is very useful for gathering information regarding sales outreach targets.

Matsuo

"With the introduction of uSonar/SideSonar, we shifted the responsibility of targeting—which was previously handled by individual sales representatives—to the managers of each zone. Our managers possess extensive sales experience and a deep understanding of the customers who truly value our unique strengths: 'Affordable Pricing,' 'Quality and Functionality,' and 'Total Coordination.'

uSonar/SideSonar is equipped with a wealth of features that allow our managers to maximize this expertise and experience, and we feel that it has indeed become easier to achieve success in our targeting efforts."

Matsuo

"By using the 'Story' feature, we can identify customers who, for example, have relocation plans that align with our expertise in office products, or customers who own employee dormitories where our strength in total coordination proposals can be fully leveraged.

Furthermore, we use the 'Live Access' feature to narrow down customers who have visited our website or viewed our catalog pages. The fact that a customer has shown interest in Nitori is, in itself, highly valuable information, so we make it a priority to secure appointments as quickly as possible.

Additionally, we pick up and map the companies we have targeted. We have become significantly more efficient in our sales activities, both in terms of time and cost.
Moving forward, we aim to build a system that matches data from uSonar's corporate database, 'LBC,' with our internal system data to analyze attributes and develop strategic plans."

Matsuo

"The executive in charge at the time held the view that 'In business, there are areas that should be thoroughly streamlined through IT (digitalization), and areas where it is better to take time and use an analog approach.'

Therefore, we are committed to thoroughly streamlining our sales activity mechanisms through our internal system integrated with uSonar/SideSonar. At the same time, we want to continue prioritizing direct, face-to-face interactions with our customers to listen to their voices, developing products they will choose, and providing proposals that go beyond mere satisfaction to deliver genuine inspiration."