Kotani

Our Corporate Sales Division is a department that conducts extensive enterprise-level sales activities, primarily targeting listed companies, large corporations, and major chains with nationwide locations in the Tokyo metropolitan and Kansai regions. The Strategic Planning Office, to which we belong, serves as the planning and strategy development department for the Corporate Sales Division, responsible for formulating medium- to long-term strategies and departmental policies for each term. Furthermore, as the department promoting sales DX and sales enablement, we are also responsible for developing system and data infrastructure, selecting and implementing various sales tech tools, and managing websites and inside sales operations.

Kotani

There were two major challenges before implementing uSonar. The first was that the corporate lists used for inside sales were exhausted, and the second was that the data was not normalized, resulting in scattered information with inconsistent naming conventions.

Due to these issues, before introducing uSonar, we had to purchase corporate data for potential leads each time and reconcile it with our existing data. However, because company name formats were not standardized, we ultimately had to reconcile the data manually.

Motohashi

I was the one actually performing the reconciliation work, and it took a significant amount of man-hours to create a single list. First, as preparation for reconciling with the purchased list, we had to standardize the formatting of the corporate data we held. There were spaces before or after "Co., Ltd.," inconsistencies between "(Inc.)" and "Co., Ltd.," and variations in whether the legal entity type appeared at the beginning or end of the name... We had to correct this information to the official registered names. Only after repeating this correction process could we finally reconcile it with the purchased list. At the time, this task was extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive.

Motohashi

The fact that Salesforce and uSonar integrate seamlessly, allowing normalized data to be accumulated at the point of registration, was very attractive. I believed that by eliminating duplicates caused by inconsistent naming and preventing omissions in registered information, we could reduce the man-hours required for data maintenance, which was a significant challenge.

Kotani

The ability to create inside sales target lists anytime, instantly, and easily was also a point we anticipated. Furthermore, the comprehensiveness of the database, which includes chain store locations and branch-level data—a requirement for our company—as well as the ability to extract lists from various perspectives by utilizing digital marketing elements such as intent data like Live Access, were the deciding factors for implementation.

Also, although we have had a relationship with uSonar for 14 years, I have the impression that they have a high level of agility, characterized by proactive proposals that anticipate our needs and a deep understanding of the vision we want to achieve. Because of this, the sense of stability in being able to entrust them with post-implementation operations was also a deciding factor. In fact, even after implementation, not only the CS team but also the sales team held numerous training sessions and cooperated with us to ensure successful adoption.

Kotani

There is no gap at all. We utilize it in some capacity every single day.

Motohashi

Since all company lists extracted from various uSonar services are assigned LBC codes, the man-hours required for data consolidation have been significantly reduced. As a result of implementing uSonar and eliminating the need for manual data maintenance, we have reduced the time required from extracting targets to importing them into Salesforce from 10 days to approximately 2 days, which represents an approximately 80% reduction in time.

Kotani

From the perspective of Salesforce utilization, implementing uSonar has also made sales management much easier. Because LBC codes are assigned to all affiliated companies, we can easily link the sales of the entire holding company as well as the sales of its affiliates. Consequently, it is extremely convenient to immediately identify that a company is a high-value client when viewed as part of a group, even if its individual sales and profits are low.

Kotani

We operate a website for corporate clients, and by utilizing Live Access, we have become able to understand on a fact-based level which companies are interested in which products and services.

Furthermore, we can identify that unexpected companies—those we would not normally approach—are visiting our site. For example, we can see that a company currently using our mats is also viewing our air purifier page, which makes it easier to provide concrete proposals during sales visits.

As a result, the appointment acquisition rate from approach lists extracted via Live Access has improved to approximately 160%.

Kotani

As a medium- to long-term theme, we aim to evolve corporate sales within the context of Data and AI. We intend to accelerate Sales DX, further improve the productivity of our sales organization through AI-driven, highly reproducible sales insights and sales automation, and maximize LTV.

Furthermore, at our company, we place the utmost importance on face-to-face interactions, such as visiting customers and listening to their needs. We intend to utilize AI to secure and improve the quality of this face-to-face time.

To achieve these goals, I believe that deeper collaboration and partnership with uSonar, which continues to advance the enrichment of corporate data, are essential.