Uchida

Our company aims for data-driven management. As part of this initiative, we use Salesforce to efficiently share customer, property, and sales opportunity information to support our sales activities.

Until now, we have grown the company based on the intuition, experience, and courage of our sales team. However, with the advancement of IT, tools capable of rapidly analyzing vast amounts of data have emerged. Since data is also accumulating in Salesforce, we have been aiming for data-driven management since around 2021, believing that if we leverage this data, we can further increase our sales win rate.

In this context, I am responsible for promoting the utilization of SFA/CRM tools (sales force automation) and BI tools (business intelligence).

Uchida

Before implementing Salesforce, our sales team managed customers using individual notebooks and Excel, which meant that information was siloed, and the sales organization as a whole could not leverage valuable insights. Therefore, we considered a policy to implement an SFA/CRM to utilize information across the entire company.

We initially developed an in-house system to store customer information, but it did not go well. We then implemented Salesforce, but there were many cases where the staff lost sight of the purpose or the data was incomplete.

Another issue was that there were a significant number of duplicate records within Salesforce, reaching approximately 10,000 entries. Because of this data duplication, multiple sales representatives would approach the same company multiple times, which sometimes led to complaints.

Furthermore, we use Tableau for business analysis, but because the data within Salesforce was duplicated, the figures generated in Tableau were not being aggregated correctly. Since Tableau is also used for management meetings, there was a risk of making incorrect management decisions if the results were inaccurate. For that reason, it was essential for us to clean and organize our data.

Uchida

We transitioned from managing sales opportunities in Excel to managing everything in Salesforce, so it was challenging to get the team to understand a mindset completely different from our traditional methods. We involved sales managers and spent six months coordinating with the field teams to define sales phases and probability levels.

Uchida

The ease of integration with SFA/CRM systems was a major factor. To utilize data effectively, it is necessary to aggregate not only information on clients, sales opportunities, and activities but also data from other core systems via API integration. The fact that uSonar facilitates easy integration with various systems was a key point.

Furthermore, by using uSonar for data cleansing, we were able to eliminate duplicate data and establish a foundation for leveraging data within Salesforce.

Of course, the fact that it possesses a volume of corporate data unmatched by other companies, as well as the breadth of information that is comprehensively collected and easy to use, were also deciding factors.

Uchida

We compared three to four different companies, but we chose mSonar because of its ease of integration with Salesforce and its convenience for sales representatives in the field. We believe that field-level usability is particularly important, and after seeing the demonstrations, many of our team members agreed that mSonar was the most practical solution. Compared to other business card management applications, mSonar offers an overwhelming amount of information, and the ability to freely search not only for business card details but also for corporate information while on the go is a significant advantage for our field staff.

Uchida

The reduction in time spent on list creation and company extraction, as well as the cost savings, have been significant. It is particularly useful to be able to create lists based on company characteristics using "Stories" (qualitative corporate attributes uniquely labeled by uSonar). For example, stories such as "companies likely to relocate their offices," "companies that own corporate housing," and "companies promoting work-style reform" align well with our real estate business, allowing us to create targeted lists that lead to successful outcomes.

The "Good Industry" classifications (industry categories uniquely defined by uSonar) are also highly regarded by our sales team. Even when companies fall under different attributes in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' industry classifications, the "Good Industry" categories often align with our own internal definitions, making it easier to segment our analysis results.

Furthermore, before implementing uSonar, our only option was to purchase corporate data from other providers on an ad-hoc basis. While the data accuracy was high, the time and cost required to utilize it were significant drawbacks. In contrast, uSonar allows us to use 12.5 million corporate data records whenever and as much as we need, which has drastically reduced our costs related to corporate data and significantly increased the number of companies we can approach.

The reduction in corporate data purchases has also resolved the issue of data duplication. When we were purchasing corporate data, we had to cross-reference it with our existing internal data to check for duplicates. By implementing uSonar, we have been able to eliminate the man-hours previously required for that task.

Uchida

It is very convenient to be able to view credit information by scanning a business card, search for corporate information, make calls directly from the app, and view the location of a headquarters on a map. It has become a habit among our sales members to check mSonar before visiting clients to stay updated on industry news.

Uchida

The man-hours required for creating materials for meetings have been significantly reduced. Previously, we had to submit materials several days before a meeting, which meant struggling to aggregate figures in Excel and create graphs for every single meeting. Now, we utilize Tableau for our operations, and no advance preparation is required.

This is only possible because of the culture where data normalized by uSonar is entered into Salesforce. Our president and executives have even explicitly stated that they only look at Salesforce for meeting materials. In other words, a lack of data entry implies a lack of results, so the culture of data entry has become deeply rooted.

That said, data entry is time-consuming, so I do not think every member is fully convinced. Therefore, our president and executives periodically speak about why data entry is necessary to continue our awareness-raising efforts.

Uchida

We intend to utilize uSonar even further to increase our sales win rates.

By seamlessly integrating and utilizing information such as uSonar's corporate data, news, and Live Access with the customer information registered in our Salesforce, we are considering building a system that allows us to precisely capture customer needs and approach customers who require our services early and accurately.

Furthermore, if we can capture the interests of potential customers in real-time through data-driven initiatives and visualize priorities to approach them effectively, we can accelerate the process from lead acquisition to nurturing and closing. I am optimistic that we can improve our win rate from our previous 7-5 record to 8-4 or 9-3.