Commercial Food Wholesaler Kuze Implements uSonar to Drive Sales Transformation

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, the company identified the construction of a "One Team" sales structure as an urgent management priority to adapt to structural changes across the industry.
Previously, sales activities and business card management were largely dependent on individual efforts, with results skewed toward a few high performers. Consequently, there was a need to elevate performance across the entire organization by visualizing sales processes and promoting a division of labor among marketing, inside sales, and field sales teams.

To resolve these issues, the DX Promotion team within the Corporate Strategy Promotion Office redefined kintone—already in use at the company—not as a mere "management tool," but as a "system to maximize customer satisfaction and profit." They began building a structure to accurately visualize not only results but also the processes leading to orders, making them reproducible.

To achieve this, it was first necessary to eliminate duplicate or outdated information in the customer database and establish a solid customer data foundation. Furthermore, they envisioned a mechanism (to shorten lead times) that would allow sales teams to effectively utilize this corporate data to increase revenue.
Based on the above, uSonar was selected because it allows for the consolidation of corporate data within kintone at the branch level for establishments like restaurants, and because of the high evaluation of the "LBC" corporate database, which boasts a high comprehensiveness of 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 for both existing sales, which involves "deeply understanding the customer," and new business development, which involves "proposing solutions based on the customer's business conditions," all based on the customer data foundation maintained by LBC.
In existing sales, the ability to visualize transaction status at the store level for chains and group companies enables approaches to untapped branches of existing clients. Furthermore, by utilizing "cautionary" information and credit ratings, the company has optimized the allocation of sales resources.
In new business development, the company utilizes the corporate information and business card management app "mSonar." In addition to managing information on individually owned restaurants, staff can freely search for companies at any time and 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 sales representatives make 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 website. By using Live Access, they can visualize in real-time "which companies are viewing which pages on their site," allowing for richer customer engagement.

③ Other Departments
In other departments, customer codes that were previously managed separately from the sales department have been unified and consolidated using the LBC codes provided by uSonar, significantly reducing the man-hours required for cumbersome reconciliation tasks.
Additionally, by utilizing "credit rating information," the company can identify high-risk companies in advance, making credit decisions and transaction assessments smoother.
Furthermore, corporate research that was previously conducted individually via the internet can now be streamlined, as basic company information, financial data, and affiliate information can be viewed in a single list on uSonar, reducing the effort required for information gathering. As a result, this contributes to the overall efficiency and productivity of research and management operations.

With the implementation of uSonar, Kuze is advancing the creation of a company-wide foundation for information utilization, including 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 SFA data accumulated by the field sales team with BI tools. The policy is to leverage this for more advanced data analysis incorporating AI to support decision-making and management.
Furthermore, by making more effective use of cautionary and credit rating information based on uSonar's corporate data, the company aims to further strengthen risk management and proposal capabilities. Kuze is striving to establish a data-driven sales structure centered on corporate data.

Until now, our company relied primarily on the intuition and experience of each individual. By implementing uSonar, we have been able to establish a foundation for utilizing customer data.
Because it is now possible to utilize corporate data at the branch and group level, 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 employees, supporting the transformation of the food industry.

Kuze Co., Ltd. is a food wholesale company founded in 1934 that sells commercial food products and materials to the food service industry nationwide. Under the mission of "Connecting hearts through the power of food," the company supports the future of the food industry by leveraging its proposal-based sales approach and product development capabilities.
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