Kase

Our Corporate and Premier Strategy Department, Management Support Group, is tasked with strengthening sales capabilities. We serve corporate clients, business owners, and high-net-worth individuals. In addition to enhancing traditional face-to-face sales, we have been working on improving sales efficiency, including non-face-to-face channels, since this fiscal year.

Nakai

I am responsible for the improvement, maintenance, and management of systems such as SFA/CRM. We perform ongoing updates and actively respond to requests for new features from headquarters and branch offices. Furthermore, a key part of our role is promoting data utilization by supporting data consolidation, data cleansing, and the dissemination of information to various departments.

Kase

We first introduced uSonar in 2018. At that time, a major challenge was that Resona Bank was not effectively centralizing customer information. Although we had implemented Salesforce to store customer data, there was no common key to identify companies, leading to duplicate corporate information. To resolve this, we integrated the uSonar corporate database, LBC, with Salesforce, which enabled us to manage customers not only at the headquarters level but also at the corporate group level.

Nakai

Subsequently, the medium-term management plan set forth the goal of "Group-wide Consolidated Operations," requiring the provision of optimal proposals to customers across the entire Resona Group, rather than just through Resona Bank alone. To achieve this, we expanded the data utilization infrastructure—which integrates uSonar with Salesforce and was previously built within Resona Bank—to all companies within the Resona Group.

Kase

Indeed. To begin with, there was no common key to identify that entities were the "same company," making the construction of an integrated infrastructure extremely challenging. I feel that by adopting LBC as a common key, we have finally established the foundation to connect data between the bank and its group companies.

Nakai

At Resona Bank, our corporate sales representatives utilize mSonar, but we have long faced the challenge of customer information not being properly handed over due to frequent personnel transfers. In the banking sector, there is significant movement of personnel, with not only account managers but also supervisors changing frequently. Consequently, networking information—specifically "who met with which customer"—was not being effectively transferred, leaving us unable to fully leverage these valuable touchpoints for our sales activities.

Kase

The key factor was definitely the "comprehensiveness." We have many small and medium-sized enterprise clients, and being able to cover that segment thoroughly was extremely important. I felt that "LBC" offers a broad range of coverage, from large corporations to small and micro-enterprises, which is a unique strength that other companies do not possess.

Nakai

In addition, the "accuracy of data matching" was also significant. Honestly, our internal database was not necessarily clean at the beginning; information entered by staff contained variations in notation and outdated data. It was difficult to perform accurate matching as it was, but by utilizing LBC, we can correctly identify corporate information. This was a point we expected from uSonar.

Kase

By utilizing LBC, we are now able to seamlessly visualize corporate CIF information and business card information on Salesforce. This allows us to see at a glance which department is dealing with which client and whether there have been past points of contact, which has significantly improved the precision of our sales activities. Furthermore, by using LBC as a common key, data integration across the entire group has become smoother, and information within the group can now be shared easily.

Nakai

At the time of implementation, we were just beginning our Salesforce deployment project, so we decided that integrating mSonar as a business card management tool would allow for seamless connectivity. The deciding factor was that it expands the scope of utilization by connecting with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and MA (Marketing Automation) systems, rather than being used as a standalone tool.

Nakai

By using LBC as a common key to integrate information across Resona Group companies, we are now able to grasp transaction statuses across the entire group, rather than just at the bank level. It is a significant advantage to be able to see at a glance on Salesforce that a company is doing business with both Resona Bank and other Resona Group companies.

Kase

Furthermore, being able to understand how the entire Resona Group views our customers has broadened the scope of our proposals. I feel we are moving closer to a structure where we can present optimal solutions that include not only Resona Bank products but also the services of various Resona Group companies.

Kase

Currently, mSonar is utilized by approximately 20 headquarters departments (about 800 employees) and 120 corporate branch areas (about 1,500 employees) to share business card information. The digitization of business cards has enabled information sharing, which has led to an expansion of our sales activities.

For example, while our sales team frequently meets with accounting and finance personnel, contact with individuals in other departments is rare. Furthermore, by sharing business card information exchanged by executives at meetings, we can now view contact information for high-level decision-makers. By using mSonar to record and share this information, we are now able to leverage previously invisible connections, and I feel that our sales representatives have become more strategic in their operations.

We are also utilizing it from a marketing perspective. Based on the business card data collected in mSonar, we conduct email campaigns and have branches approach customers who have shown interest. Contact information that was previously underutilized has now led to new sales approaches and strengthened relationships.

Nakai

First, we want to deepen collaboration across all Resona Group companies more than ever before. The ideal scenario is to share even the records of sales activities across the entire Resona Group. There are many challenges that Resona Bank cannot solve alone, and by combining solutions from group companies such as cards, payments, and think tanks, we believe that if we can visualize who is having what conversations with which customers, we can provide a wider range of proposals to our customers. To that end, we want to continue advancing data unification by leveraging uSonar, which covers 12.5 million corporate location records.

Kase

That said, sharing data within the Resona Group is not without its difficulties. Issues regarding information management rules and system investments exist, so I believe it is important to determine how to overcome those hurdles. With compliance and regulatory aspects in mind, we are proceeding step-by-step, navigating challenges and working to build consensus.

Nakai

We have begun connecting the data consolidated in Salesforce to a data lake for further analysis. By combining this with corporate attributes and touchpoint information, I believe we can leverage AI and BI tools (management analysis tools) to discover similar companies and predict which prospects to approach next.

Kase

That is exactly right. Group-wide consolidated operations are a key pillar of our medium-term management plan, and driving strategy across the entire Resona Group is a major theme. By integrating sales field information with uSonar corporate data, we hope to further enhance the value we provide to our customers.