Food Service Wholesaler Kuze Drives Sales Transformation Through uSonar Implementation

Kuze, a food wholesaler that celebrated its 90th anniversary last year, supports the development of the food service industry by leveraging its network of restaurants nationwide.
Recently, to respond to structural changes across the industry, the company identified the construction of a one-team sales structure as a critical management priority.
Previously, sales activities and business card management were handled individually, with results often concentrated among a few high performers. Consequently, there was a need to elevate organizational performance by visualizing sales processes and promoting the division of labor across marketing, inside sales, and field sales.

To address these challenges, the DX Promotion team within the Corporate Strategy Office redefined the company's use of kintone from a simple "management tool" to a "system to maximize customer satisfaction and profit." They began building a framework to accurately visualize not only results but also the processes leading to orders, making them reproducible.

To achieve this, it was first necessary to resolve data duplication and obsolescence within the customer database to establish a solid customer data foundation. Furthermore, they envisioned a mechanism to effectively utilize this corporate data to enable sales teams to increase revenue (shortening lead times).
Based on this, uSonar was selected for its ability to consolidate corporate data within kintone by location, such as individual restaurants, and for the high coverage of the LBC corporate database, which contains 12.5 million records nationwide. A key feature of this implementation is its deployment across multiple departments.

1. Sales Department
The sales department utilizes uSonar based on the customer data infrastructure organized by LBC, supporting both existing sales, which focuses on "deeply understanding the customer," and new business development, which focuses on "proposing solutions based on the customer's business profile."
For existing sales, the ability to visualize transaction status at the individual store level for chains and group companies enables a proactive approach to untapped locations within existing client firms. Furthermore, by leveraging "Caution" alerts and credit ratings, the department has optimized the allocation of sales resources.
For new business development, the team uses the corporate information and business card management app "mSonar." In addition to managing information on independently owned restaurants, the app allows for flexible corporate searches at any time, enabling staff to easily grasp detailed information before meetings. This contributes to more efficient information gathering and the standardization of sales skills.

2. Product and Marketing Departments
In today's digital society, 70% of the purchasing process is completed before a salesperson makes contact, making pre-purchase research and evaluation by the buyer a critical factor in decision-making.
Kuze's product and marketing departments utilize the "Live Access" feature, which visualizes companies visiting their corporate website. By using Live Access, the team can visualize in real-time "which companies are viewing which pages on the website," allowing for more meaningful customer engagement.

3. Other Departments
In other departments, customer codes that were previously managed separately by the sales department have been unified and consolidated using the LBC codes provided by uSonar, significantly reducing the man-hours required for complex reconciliation tasks.
Additionally, by utilizing "Credit Rating Information," the company can identify high-risk firms in advance, making credit assessments and transaction decisions much smoother.
Furthermore, corporate research that was previously conducted via individual internet searches is now streamlined, as basic corporate information, financial data, and affiliate information can be viewed in a single list on uSonar. As a result, this has contributed to the overall efficiency of research and management tasks and improved productivity.

With the implementation of uSonar, Kuze is advancing the creation of a company-wide information utilization infrastructure that includes not only the sales department but also the product and marketing departments.
Moving forward, in addition to the CRM data from the inside sales department built three years ago, the company plans to integrate data from the SFA accumulated by field sales with BI tools. The strategy is to leverage advanced data analysis incorporating AI to support decision-making and management.
Furthermore, by making more effective use of "Caution" alerts and credit rating information based on uSonar's corporate data, the company will further strengthen risk management and proposal capabilities. The goal is to establish a data-driven sales structure centered on corporate data.

Until now, our company's sales activities were primarily reliant on the individual intuition and experience of each employee, but by implementing uSonar, we have been able to establish a foundation for utilizing customer data.
Because we can now utilize corporate data at the branch and group levels, we expect to realize more strategic and reproducible sales activities. While cherishing the trust we have built as a company with a long history, we will continue to take on challenges to grow into a more convenient company for our customers and all our employees, as a firm that supports the transformation of the food industry.

Founded in 1934, Kuze Co., Ltd. is a food wholesaler that sells commercial food products and materials to the food service industry nationwide.
With the mission of "Connecting thoughts through the power of food," the company supports the future of food by leveraging proposal-based sales and product development capabilities.

Click here for the Kuze Co., Ltd. website: