Case Study｜Nippon Media Systems, Inc.

In addition to creating sales routes using the map app, you can now check your sales activities logon the go using your tablet.

--What is the nature of your business and sales style?

Nagano:
Japan Media Systems Corporation is a trading company specializing in telecommunications equipment and environmental products. In recent years, the company has expanded into cloud services and optical Internet line services, providing customers with an optimal office environment through integrated services including installation and maintenance. The inside sales team makes appointments by phone, and the field sales team goes to the site to close the deal.

Mr. Ogiwara:
There are two main types of clients that the field sales team visits: existing customers and new customers. For existing customers, the team visits 5 to 10 clients a day, and for new customers, the team visits about 30 clients a day, listening to their office problems and proposing products that will help them solve their problems.

--What was the reason for the division into two units, inside sales and field sales?

Mr. Nagano:
Originally, all sales representatives went out and conducted sales activities mainly by making dives. However, nearly 90% of the time, the dive sales activities did not result in orders being received. This low order acceptance rate was leading to exhaustion among sales representatives. To solve this problem, we established an inside sales team specializing in making appointments and modified the organization so that the field sales team could focus on making proposals.

--How did you come across UPWARD?

Mr. Nagano:
At that time, our company did not have established rules for daily reporting and reporting, and the status of activities was mainly reported orally by subordinates to their superiors. Therefore, sales activity histories were managed by each department, and it was difficult to grasp the sales activity histories of other departments. In order to break out of this situation, we compared several tools and found UPWARD.

--What were the deciding factors in choosing UPWARD out of all the tools available?

Mr. Nagano: The most decisive factor was the ability to link the
map with our sales activity history. Originally, our sales representatives registered the companies they visited on the map at appand built sales routes based on the location information of the companies. However, with UPWARD, they can check their past sales activity history at the same time they build their sales routes. We thought this system would be effective for our sales staff.

Another important point was the ability to collectively manage customer information that had been crossed loginto multiple tools. In our case, since our company's products cover multiple genres, we had to manage customer information such as sales activity history, transaction history, and after-sales support using multiple tools. However, with upward, we can manage all of this information in one place. When checking data, it is no longer necessary to check multiple tools; it can be viewed all at once in upward. This convenience was the deciding factor in our decision to implement upward.

Checking the date of the last visit from the map, suppliers that have not been visited for a long period of time can be identified at a glance.

--What challenges did you feel you had before introducing UPWARD?

Toyama:
As was mentioned earlier, there were no rules on how to manage sales activity history, so each department had data in different ways. This made it difficult to share sales activity histories among departments, and it took time to respond to inquiries from customers. In addition, when there was a change in the person in charge or a change in departments, we often had to call the past person in charge to check the sales activity history. This also caused delays in responding to inquiries.

--Have these issues been resolved after the introduction of UPWARD?

Mr. Toyama:
Yes, UPWARD enables us to check sales activity history, contract details, and transaction history all at once, reducing the time required for confirmation work and enabling quicker responses. In addition, since the sales activity history is updated in real time, there are no more discrepancies in responses caused by time lags in updating information.

--From the sales representative side, are there any issues that you feel have been resolved since the introduction of UPWARD?

Mr. Ogiwara:
I feel that two major issues have been resolved: First, we are now able to identify customers who have not been visited for a long time, and before UPWARD, it was time-consuming to find out when each customer was last visited. As a result, it was not uncommon for us to unknowingly find customers who had not visited for a long time. However, after the introduction of UPWARD, we were able to grasp at a glance the timing of the last visit from the map, thereby eliminating the number of companies that had not been visited for a long time.

Another is the ability to keep track of past sales activity when visiting new clients, which is difficult for a new sales representative who visits about 30 companies a day to remember all of the details of each company's sales activity. Even if the sales activity history was filled in, it was time-consuming to recall the information, and there were many cases where the information was overlooked. However, after the introduction of UPWARD, they can now easily recall past sales activity histories and check them before starting sales activities. As a result, I feel that I am now able to have more detailed discussions in each of my sales activities.

--Please describe a situation in which your past sales activity history was effective in visiting a new customer.

Mr. Ogiwara:
Many of the commercial products we handle have fixed contract terms. When proposing such products, the period just before contract expiration is the perfect time to make a presentation. I feel that it is effective that we can now make proposals in accordance with the timing by adding the contract expiration date to the sales activity history at log.

Mr. Toyama:
In the past, we had managed information on the expiration dates of contracts for commercial products contracted by each of our business partners. However, since this information could not be accessed from outside the office, there were cases in which sales activities were conducted without having this information when visiting a customer on short notice. However, after the introduction of UPWARD, this information can now be accessed from outside the office, so sales activities can be conducted with this information in mind, even on short notice.

Hearings from sales representatives on the use of the system and repeated improvements together with UPWARD personnel.

--Your company established a department dedicated to UPWARD operation along with the introduction of UPWARD. How did you come about establishing this department?

Mr. Toyama:
When our company previously implemented another tool, we were not able to follow up very well after implementation. This tool did not improve the difficulty that sales representatives felt in using it, and the entry of sales activity histories gradually declined. As a result, there was no one to utilize the tool and its operation was suspended. Based on the lessons learned at that time, a department dedicated to UPWARD operation was established.

--What measures has this department taken to utilize UPWARD?

Mr. Toyama:
First, we held a briefing session on the use of UPWARD for the persons in charge of each business operation at each location. We also held hearings for questions and opinions, and based on the opinions we received, we held meetings with the UPWARD staff and updated the tool as needed. We were particularly particular about the layout. We aimed to create a layout that would allow the person in charge to input each entry item without feeling stressed, and we repeatedly updated the tool based on the opinions we gathered.

--How has the response been from employees since the introduction of the system?

Mr. Toyama:
We often hear people say, "There is not a day that goes by that I don't open UPWARD. The actual login history shows that most of our employees log in every day and utilize UPWARD. As we continue to operate UPWARD, we receive more and more ideas on how to make use of it and suggestions for functional improvements. Currently, we are thinking about how to promptly reflect the ideas we receive in the functionality of UPWARD, and we are repeatedly making updates.

--Did you have any concerns before introducing UPWARD?

Mr. Toyama:
To be honest, I was full of anxiety before introducing UPWARD, because it has a wide variety of functions, and I was not confident in my ability to use it. However, after detailed discussions with UPWARD's customer success staff, we were able to customize the design of the input screen and input items according to the way we envisioned the operation, and then we were able to start using the system. We were also provided with videos explaining how to use the system, which helped us to smoothly implement the system, despite our misgivings.

Japan Media Systems uses tablet terminals to make it easy to check UPWARD information while on the road or at meetings.

--What features would you like to see in UPWARD in the future?

Mr. Toyama:
In our case, we handle a wide variety of commercial products, and each product has different items that must be entered. We feel that by preparing different input formats for each product, we can encourage sales representatives to input information more concisely and accurately.

Mr. Nagano:
Since AI technology has developed in recent years, I feel that it would be good if AI could analyze the text of sales activity logand determine to some extent where to store it. It would be nice if the tool could be made easier to input sales activity history, eliminating the need for input as much as possible.

*The names of organizations and positions in the article are as of November 2023.