Okada

The Marketing Department I belong to is responsible for planning and promoting product development and sales strategies. With approximately 30 members, we cover products and markets across Japan. The department is divided into four main sections: Product Planning, Promotion, Digital Strategy, and E-commerce. My team, the Digital Strategy Section, consists of four members responsible for corporate website management, social media operations, public relations, sales activity promotion, and promoting the utilization of sales systems (kintone, product DB, and BI tools).

Okada

As a premise, our company migrated our SFA/CRM to Cybozu's kintone in July 2022. Our section is responsible for promoting the use of kintone within the sales department. With the previous SFA/CRM, both the sales and marketing teams felt the burden of manual customer data entry was too heavy, and it took significant man-hours to aggregate data, analyze it, and create lists. When migrating to kintone, we wanted to resolve these data-related challenges as well.

Okada

Yes. We knew that to properly utilize data and achieve results, we had to address the underlying issues with data organization. Specifically, multiple codes existed for the same customer, and they were not linked to one another. As a result, unified codes were not used for customer data or email distribution, which made the manual workload for analysis extremely heavy. Because customer data was not linked, activity reports (daily reports) were also entered under separate codes, causing data to be scattered. Furthermore, business card management was primarily paper-based and held individually by sales representatives. Additionally, since customer data was also being created through manual entry, we could not standardize naming conventions for addresses, company names, or personal names, leading to inconsistencies that further complicated the problem.

Okada

I was at a loss for a while. First, I explored whether we could solve it internally. I tried to perform deduplication based on various criteria, but none of them resulted in a definitive common code, which was frustrating.

Okada

I was aware that there were services that sell corporate data and provide master data on a one-time basis, as I had researched this in the past. However, I realized that while the data would be cleaned temporarily, the root cause would remain, leading to the same situation over time due to new customer registrations. While searching for a service that offers a constant connection, automatically maintains data, and assigns common codes, I discovered the services offered by uSonar.

Okada

We compared several companies, but we ultimately chose uSonar because it comprehensively organizes companies nationwide at the branch level and includes a wide range of attribute information. Additionally, since our sales targets include educational institutions such as schools, the extensive database of school-related entities, including elementary schools, junior high schools, kindergartens, and nursery schools, was also a major appeal. Furthermore, it was important that we could leverage uSonar services, such as the business card and corporate information app "mSonar," to connect to proactive sales activities, rather than just focusing on the defensive aspect of data maintenance. We considered strengthening our approach by enhancing email utilization and creating lists of similar companies based on corporate name searches.

Okada

Success. uSonar possesses a corporate database that covers nationwide corporate data down to the branch level, and manages it using a common code for both companies and branches (LBC code). We then assign (match) the LBC code to our customer data, and even if the company names or addresses in our customer data vary in notation, the same customer is assigned a common LBC code. This revealed the number of duplicate corporate records within the system and inconsistencies caused by input variations, allowing us to achieve the integration and unification of our corporate data.While I cannot disclose the exact number of customers, after cleaning up the duplicate data, we were able to reduce the total data volume by approximately 40%. Furthermore, we were able to reduce the facility information, which consisted of over 100,000 records, to less than half. This data compression reduced maintenance and utilization costs, establishing the foundation for effective corporate data utilization.

Okada

We built a corporate master, customer master, and business card management application within kintone, and by using the LBC code as a common identifier for all of them, they began to function smoothly. Previously, the task of linking corporate data took about 3 to 4 hours per session (or 1 to 2 days in difficult cases), but now it is completed within a few minutes, or at most 30 minutes, including list creation.

Okada

Beyond managing existing customer data, by using sideSonar, new prospect data is stored within our SFA/CRM with an LBC code attached, which is significant because it allows us to link data before and after they become customers. Previously, before registration in the core sales system, each sales representative would manually enter customer information for daily reports. As a result, it was not possible to link that information with the data after registration in the core sales system.

Okada

With the introduction of mSonar, business card information captured via smartphone and converted into digital data is immediately linked to accurate corporate information, which has accelerated our accumulation and utilization efforts.Previously, we managed email distribution lists for business partners and others using Excel. Naturally, because maintenance such as adding business card information was difficult, we were limited to fewer than 1,000 entries, but since integrating with mSonar, that number has increased by approximately 5 times. The fact that sales representatives no longer have to perform manual entry, as they did with Excel management, has been a major benefit.

Okada

Regarding the results, looking back, this kintone and uSonar implementation project was basically completed by myself, although I did receive some cooperation from our internal systems department. I was helped by the low barrier to entry for system implementation and integration. I also felt that the sales and implementation support from uSonar was very attentive, and their response to inquiries was prompt.

Okada

Thanks to your support, the utilization of kintone and uSonar (including mSonar and sideSonar) is going well. We now have about 200 applications, ranging from customer master data and business card management to sales activity history, calendar management, and product master data. Currently, approximately 120 members of the sales and marketing departments use it as their daily information infrastructure tool. To begin the rollout, we held briefing sessions for each section across all sales departments to promote understanding, and we also conducted follow-up sessions to drive the transition from initial implementation to expanded utilization. Although utilization is progressing, I feel there is still some variation in proficiency levels among individual users. Moving forward, I would like to standardize and elevate the level of utilization, and by encouraging more proactive use, I hope to improve our overall sales and marketing capabilities.