Tanaka

Within our business strategy, we have established seven core business pillars, including custom-built homes. This includes not only custom homes that focus on meticulous design but also new businesses such as select homes, where dual-income households that prioritize cost and time performance can choose their preferences online. As we evolve in line with societal changes, we believe that developing information infrastructure for employees nationwide—especially tools and data environments for the sales department—is a crucial theme directly linked to ultimately delighting our customers. We think daily about what DX that leads to business transformation and results should look like, and we provide environments for each business division, corporate sales team, and sales representative at each branch office.

Tanaka

Our sales department uses Salesforce as our core system. I have a long history with Salesforce, having been involved in its implementation during the early 2010s while working in the Corporate Planning Department. Later, I also managed it from a sales operations perspective. As data accumulated within Salesforce, corporate data duplication became an issue, hindering effective utilization. Consequently, I became involved in restructuring our operational environment in my current role.

Tanaka

As we operate internally, data issues such as inconsistent naming conventions and missed updates inevitably occur during data entry. After learning about the LBC code from uSonar, which can reconcile any variations in naming and consolidate them into unique data, we integrated it into our system. This allowed us to see a path toward restructuring our operations, and the issues with Salesforce have largely been resolved. I hold the LBC code in very high regard.

Tanaka

In addition to BtoC scenarios, such as attracting customers to housing exhibitions, we also engage in BtoB sales, where we sell lumber and building materials to construction firms, and our clients for construction projects are often corporations. Furthermore, we have a BtoBtoC business flow where we capture demand from land and building owners through financial institutions, tax accountants, and real estate agents in each branch area. Since owners looking to utilize their land or buildings effectively often consult with financial institutions or tax accountants first, our local branches place great importance on maintaining strong relationships with these partners and real estate agents.

Tanaka

We utilize Salesforce to visualize relationships with the "B" entities acting as intermediaries, as well as the variations in activity levels across individual store locations, and we perform data normalization and updates using LBC codes. Since we became able to integrate with LBC codes, accurate data is linked even for small-scale business operators, which has made data entry significantly easier for everyone. Conversely, prior to this, it was difficult to enforce strict data entry notation rules, which led to data duplication.

Tanaka

I believe everyone was using it with the mindset that it was merely an "electronic business card file." Although it was a free business card management application that could integrate with Salesforce, there was no real sense of benefit from the data integration. When we learned that this service would be discontinued in the spring of 2024, we began searching for other free applications. That was when uSonar proposed mSonar, which, while a paid service, comes equipped with LBC.

Tanaka

The deciding factor was being able to envision the convenience of a business card application that integrates with LBC codes, which cover even the smallest business locations nationwide. Previously, even when we scanned business card information using a management app, we were unable to effectively utilize it in conjunction with Salesforce. As I mentioned earlier, our company already manages customer data on the Salesforce side using LBC codes. With mSonar, LBC codes are linked the moment a business card is scanned, so Salesforce data and business card data are linked instantly. I felt that this dramatic level of convenience would provide value to our field sales team that no other application could achieve.

Tanaka

We compared three to four well-known business card management applications based on their features and costs.

Tanaka

In the lumber and building materials business, we have many transactions with local builders and contractors. It is extremely convenient that when we exchange business cards, the data is immediately linked to the corporate information in uSonar, which is organized at the small-to-medium enterprise and sole proprietorship level. We would like all departments and group companies that frequently exchange business cards to use mSonar as a standard.

Ashida

We have heard that the field sales team finds their work much easier in terms of registering customer information and reducing input burden. Previously, entering visit activity and interview records into Salesforce, creating related corporate data, and logging interactions took an average of 15 minutes per person per task. With the introduction of uSonar, input candidates are now suggested automatically. This has not only improved the accuracy of input values and suppressed variations in notation, but also reduced the time required to under 3 minutes per task. In other words, we believe that operational efficiency has been improved fivefold, reducing the time required to one-fifth of the original.
While the input of end-user customer information is performed daily at each sales site, registering corporate entities such as the financial institutions mentioned earlier—which act as intermediaries in the distribution channel—was inevitably a burdensome task prone to inconsistent notation. The elimination of the hassle of manual entry from scratch has been a major change and has been well-received by the field teams. The same applies to business card data.

Kamiya

Regarding the registration of activity history for one's own sales accounts in Salesforce, I have heard that it has become much easier to register activity history since the LBC integration, as the data is now pre-populated, whereas it previously had to be entered manually.

Ashida

By introducing the uSonar LBC code, we were able to eliminate approximately 20% of the duplicate corporate account data that originally existed within Salesforce. Since then, data has been unified, enabling sales and marketing activities based on accurate corporate data. For example, we are now able to accurately display the number of business cards, business negotiations, and projects for each branch office on the Salesforce dashboard. From there, we can identify branch offices that are receiving sufficient referrals from financial institutions and those that have room for more. Furthermore, based on the data visualized on the dashboard, we are now able to discuss how to formulate strategies to achieve our KPIs.

Tanaka

Looking back, data used to be siloed, and creating reports using spreadsheets for meetings was a tedious task. Now, with the dashboard, the need for unnecessary spreadsheet creation is gone. We can say that sales productivity has increased significantly.

Kamiya

Since we were switching business card management services, the secure migration of business card image data was a major hurdle, but they handled it with great attention to detail. We provide ongoing support for inquiries regarding operation methods, and we plan to further drive adoption by collaborating with uSonar to hold training sessions.

Tanaka

One example is handling personnel transfers. In any sales environment, including real estate and financial institutions, business is largely built on human connections. While we naturally perform handovers to ensure these connections are not lost during transfers, being able to see on the data who the predecessor was connected to makes the transition smoother and serves as a benchmark for the successor's activities.

Ashida

It is also possible to identify local builders within a branch office's territory that we do not yet have a relationship with and initiate an approach.

Kamiya

We have already received numerous inquiries from the field, such as, 'The rating of the company we are considering doing business with is at this level in mSonar; is it safe to proceed with the contract?' The ability to easily check a counterparty's creditworthiness on a smartphone is a major benefit of mSonar, so we would like to ensure this is well-communicated to the field teams.

Tanaka

For example, in areas dominated by a single major corporation, if we can quickly identify that a customer works for a company within that group, we might be able to tailor our communication and proposals accordingly. We have high expectations for the potential of mSonar and LBC.