Furudo

The Corporate Sales Department is responsible for sales activities and customer management for corporate clients. In addition to maintaining and expanding our market share in electricity sales, we are also working on upselling, cross-selling, and exploring new business areas. In recent years, we have been handling solutions that go beyond electricity sales, such as CO2-free menus, energy conservation, storage batteries, and group products.
Our role in the Corporate Sales Promotion Group is to support these company-wide sales activities from a data perspective. We are developing a sales data infrastructure centered on kintone, promoting AI utilization, and centralizing the management of business cards and corporate information. Our goal is to reduce the time spent on routine tasks and information gathering, thereby maximizing the time sales representatives can spend engaging with customers.

Okazoe

Previously, customer information, project details, activity history, and contract data were scattered across Excel, Word, PowerPoint, personal notes, and emails. Management methods and the granularity of information varied by individual representative, making it impossible to consolidate and analyze the data. I believe that sales experience and know-how were also siloed within individuals.
Therefore, we introduced kintone to establish a foundation for accumulating sales information in one place and sharing it within the company. However, simply gathering information in kintone was not enough. Corporate information such as industry, revenue, number of employees, location, and branches was being researched individually by each representative. In some cases, the information was not entered at all, and even when it was, the granularity and accuracy were inconsistent.

Okazoe

That is correct. The challenges faced by customers and the content of our proposals differ depending on their industry.
For example, in the hospitality industry, we consider what kind of proposals we can make by combining information such as location, facility scale, number of employees, and financial data with our internal knowledge. If corporate information can be organized according to a consistent standard, it becomes easier to determine whether changes are specific to an individual company or represent a trend across the entire industry. Beyond just accumulating sales information in kintone, we needed to capture customers based on industry, company size, and location, and ensure the data was in a state that could be leveraged for sales activities.

Furudo

Business card information was siloed at the individual level, and the organization could not fully grasp which employees were in contact with which companies or branch offices. As the foundation for kintone was being established, expectations grew to consolidate internal knowledge, business cards, corporate information, and interaction history into a single repository to be utilized as a shared organizational asset.
On the other hand, for frontline employees, adding new input fields can be a burden. Therefore, rather than simply asking them to "please enter the data," we believed it was essential for adoption to create a state where they could realize that the accumulated information would help their own future activities and those of their colleagues.

Furudo

It is the ability to handle not only business card management but also the corporate database "LBC," branch office information, and business card information in an integrated manner. In particular, we felt that the fact that it covers not only large corporations but also small and medium-sized enterprises and sole proprietorships, as well as information at the branch office level, was far superior to other companies.
As we proceed with our actual sales activities, we require not only the headquarters information of large corporations but also information on branches and sales offices within Shikoku, as well as information on local companies. Ultimately, we made our decision based on whether the data would "truly be effective for Shikoku Electric Power's corporate sales."

Okazoe

Beyond the data and features, the personality and enthusiasm of the uSonar sales and customer success representatives were also significant factors. In regional areas, we place great importance on human connections. The fact that they always thought and acted together with us, asking "Why do you want to expand this service?" and "How can we get the frontline staff to use it?" led to our trust in them.

Even after implementation, they never dismissed requests from the field and immediately proposed improvements or alternative solutions. I feel that they acted as a "partner to grow with" rather than just providing a service, assisting us all the way through integration with kintone and adoption in the field.
Beyond web meetings and regular check-ins, when we conveyed our culture of valuing human connections in the region, they actually visited our offices in each prefecture. I believe that the accumulation of such dialogues was a major boost in moving beyond just a "good service" to cultivating a service that is actually "used" in the field.

Furuto

It has shifted from a "state of searching for information" to a "state where information is gathered automatically."
Previously, individual staff members researched corporate attributes manually. Now, with the latest corporate and business card information automatically synced to the kintone corporate information app, we have unified corporate data that everyone can access with consistent quality.
By changing fields from free-text entries to those based on LBC attributes, we have minimized variations in notation and granularity, making the data easier to search and analyze.

Furuto

Starting with the Corporate Sales Department, usage has now expanded to the Energy Solutions Office and the Living Sales Department. The number of users has increased more than eightfold, from approximately 30 to about 250.
Compared to when we first introduced kintone, the number of registered projects has increased by approximately 20 times, and the number of registered activity logs has increased by approximately 50 times. We believe that the automatic organization of corporate information through the integration with uSonar has lowered the barrier to entry for registering data in kintone.

Okazoe

We look at industry, location, number of employees, revenue scale, office locations, and corporate group information. We filter this information within kintone and combine it with our internal knowledge to evaluate proposals.

Furudo

Previously, we sometimes inferred industry-wide trends from the movements of a single company. By being able to view corporate data more broadly, it has become easier to distinguish whether a change is specific to that company or an industry-wide trend. We are now able to determine the priority of our approach based on evidence rather than just intuition.

Okazoe

We make particular use of intent data. By combining corporate attributes and keywords related to interests with tools like kintone AI, we extract companies that are likely interested in solar power, PPA, and storage batteries. Previously, it was difficult to determine which companies had needs, so this serves as a valuable clue when considering potential clients.
We also use it to capture signs that existing customers are considering other companies' services, allowing us to respond promptly. Since we can now check credit information and other data all in one place, we no longer need to gather information from multiple sources, which has made preparation before visits much easier.

Furudo

While it used to take about an hour to gather information before a client visit, it now takes as little as 10 minutes in some cases. Because I can check corporate information even while on the move, it has become easier to visit clients with prior knowledge. Clients are sometimes surprised, asking, "How do you know so much?" I believe that being able to converse based not only on corporate information but also on personnel changes and shifts in job titles is leading to the building of trust. Furthermore, because we can use the time saved for mentoring junior staff and refining our proposals, it is also leading to an improvement in the quality of our proposals.

Furudo

We have started discussing customers internally while opening mSonar. Since we can see who has a touchpoint with which customer, it has become easier to handle account handovers and grasp relationships across departments.
I was particularly happy to receive reports from the field saying that "the customer was pleased." I felt that information is shifting from being something held by individuals to something shared by the organization.

Furudo

We aim to further permeate data-driven sales that do not rely solely on intuition and experience by combining internal and external information with corporate data maintained by LBC. We want to cultivate our corporate information infrastructure into an organizational asset that supports decision-making in B2B sales.
At the same time, it is important that we continue to pursue "DX rooted in the field," where the system grows through feedback from the front lines, rather than having headquarters staff like us unilaterally dictate the mechanisms. We aim to streamline routine tasks and information gathering, allowing sales representatives to focus on dialogue and proposals with customers.

Furudo

Data that broadly covers small and medium-sized enterprises, sole proprietorships, and individual branch locations in the Shikoku area has become an essential foundation for our B2B sales. We hope that you will continue to leverage this strength while further enhancing the freshness and coverage of the data.
Furthermore, we have utilized your sharing of other companies' case studies and utilization know-how in our own initiatives. We would be pleased to see even more opportunities for users to share case studies and know-how with each other.
Moving forward, we hope you will continue to work alongside us as a "partner in co-creation," rather than remaining strictly in a provider-user relationship.

Okazoe

As a company rooted in Shikoku, we believe that we should be the ones who know our Shikoku customers best. To approach that ideal, we consider uSonar to be an irreplaceable tool.