Commercial Food Wholesaler Kuze Drives Sales Transformation with 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, the company identified the construction of a "One Team" sales structure as a critical management priority to respond 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 the division of labor among marketing, inside sales, and field sales teams.

To resolve these issues, the Management Strategy Promotion Office (DX Promotion) redefined kintone—already in use at the company—not as a mere "management tool," but as a "mechanism to maximize customer satisfaction and profit." They began building a system 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 information duplication and obsolescence within the customer database to establish a solid customer data foundation. Furthermore, they envisioned a system that would allow sales teams to increase revenue by effectively utilizing this corporate data (reducing lead time).
Based on these factors, uSonar was selected because it allows for the consolidation of corporate data in kintone by location (such as individual restaurants) and is supported by the "LBC" corporate database, which boasts high coverage of 12.5 million companies nationwide. Another 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 profile," all based on the customer data foundation maintained by LBC.
For existing sales, it is now possible to visualize transaction status at the store level for chains and group companies, enabling approaches to untapped locations of existing clients. Furthermore, by utilizing "cautionary" information and credit ratings, the company has optimized the allocation of sales resources.
For new business development, the company utilizes the corporate information and business card management app "mSonar." In addition to managing information on independently 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 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 website. By using Live Access, they can visualize in real-time "which companies are viewing which pages on their site," enabling richer customer engagement.

③ Other Departments
Other departments can now unify and consolidate customer codes—previously managed separately by the sales department—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, since basic corporate information, financial data, and affiliate information can be viewed in a single list on uSonar, the effort previously spent searching for company information on the internet has been reduced. As a result, this has contributed 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 that includes not only the sales department but also the product and marketing departments.
Moving forward, the company plans to integrate CRM data from the inside sales department (built three years ago) with SFA data accumulated by the field sales team. They also aim to link this with BI tools, incorporating AI for more advanced data analysis to support decision-making and management.
Furthermore, by leveraging corporate data from uSonar to make more effective use of cautionary and credit rating information, the company intends to further strengthen its risk management and proposal capabilities. Kuze aims to establish a data-driven sales structure centered on corporate data.

Until now, our sales activities were primarily reliant on the intuition and experience of each individual. By implementing uSonar, we have been able to establish a foundation for utilizing customer data.
Because we can now utilize corporate data at the location 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 partner for our customers and employees as a company that supports 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. With 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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