UPWARD Launches AX Consulting Specializing in Field Sales

We provide tailored AI solutions to optimize field sales activities and offer ongoing support to maximize results

UPWARD Inc. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Ryusuke Kaneki; hereinafter “UPWARD”) is launching a new “AX (AI Transformation) Consulting” service to support the advancement of field sales, with a focus on in-person sales. The service will initially be offered primarily to the financial industry, where improving the efficiency of client engagement activities is a key challenge.

Background to the Launch of AX Consulting

In today’s SaaS market, the traditional approach of offering standardized, one-size-fits-all features has made it increasingly difficult to fundamentally resolve the complex, customer-specific sales challenges. Even for companies that have adopted SaaS products, continuously optimizing their systems to keep pace with changes in business processes and industry environments has entailed significant costs. Field sales, in particular, involves many elements—such as travel and face-to-face communication—that cannot be fully digitized, making it a challenging area for implementing AI.
Against this backdrop, we go beyond the framework of a typical SaaS vendor—which merely “provides tools”—to offer AX consulting that provides end-to-end support, from AI models that reflect a company’s unique processes to the utilization of data derived from them. By continuously updating AI models based on accumulated sales data, we establish the latest, individually optimized “winning strategies” and provide ongoing support to help each company maximize its competitiveness.

Examples of products offered by AX Consulting

Automated Creation of "Strategic Schedules" to Maximize Field Sales Performance

The key challenge in maximizing field sales performance lies in balancing sales strategy priorities with the physical constraints of travel. Creating a schedule that achieves maximum efficiency by considering both “which customers to visit” and “which routes to take” requires significant time and effort. Focusing on strategy leads to wasted travel time, while prioritizing travel efficiency results in important customers being overlooked. “UPWARD Geo AI Scheduler” resolves this dilemma by directly linking sales strategy with on-the-ground operations.
This feature uses AI to instantly analyze multifaceted metrics—such as projected sales volume, customer rank, distance from the current location, and mode of transportation—which vary by company. It automatically derives an optimal schedule that minimizes travel waste and maximizes results, while taking existing appointments into account. Furthermore, by incorporating data on field-executed initiatives into the AI, it enables rapid PDCA cycles.

• Flexible Campaign Configuration
  When creating a schedule, you can specify the sales campaigns you want to promote to the AI. By switching between multiple campaigns, you can quickly conduct A/B tests in the field.
  
  
• Customization Tailored to the Field
  We make detailed adjustments to our systems to align with each company’s business practices, ensuring that real-world data from the sales floor is effectively incorporated into strategic planning.
  
  
• Building "Winning Strategies" with AI Consultants
  AI consultants with deep industry expertise work closely with each company to help customize AI solutions based on unique metrics. This transforms theoretical strategies into "individually optimized sales winning strategies" that frontline teams can execute without hesitation, dramatically improving sales productivity across the entire organization.

Strengthening Compliance Measures Through the Use of AI Meeting Transcription Services

In the financial industry, sales activities require not only log detailed interviews with clients and log but also reviewing whether the company is complying with regulations as part of standard business processes. To support these industry-specific operations, we utilize "UPWARD AI Speech"—a solution that combines our proprietary presence detection technology with speech analysis—to transcribe on-site conversations into meeting minutes, thereby driving the efficiency and automation of field sales.

• Keep a Record of Your Visits
  Using your smartphone's location data, the system automatically detects when you arrive at a destination and keeps a reliable record of your visit.
  
  
• Prevent "Forgotten Recordings and Errors"
  In addition to the "Arrival Detection" feature mentioned above, you'll receive a notification suggesting that you start recording, helping to prevent "forgotten recordings." Furthermore, our patented technology generates meeting minutes even when offline, log that the content of your conversations log reliably log.
  
  
• Cleaning "Sensitive Information"
  AI analyzes recorded content and automatically removes customer "sensitive information" that must not be retained log. It also identifies words prohibited by law or regulations and alerts the responsible staff.

The Mutual Value Provided by "AX Consulting"

With the launch of this service, UPWARD is strengthening its personalized support provided by industry-specialized consultants. This enables the rapid development of advanced AI models that take into account industry-specific characteristics and each company’s unique sales processes, as well as the early identification and resolution of on-the-ground challenges.
Client companies will receive ongoing support not only for tool implementation but also for organizational adoption, including redefining the purpose of SFA/CRM, designing KPIs, and transitioning to coaching-style management. Furthermore, field data automatically accumulated from daily sales activities, as well as changes in laws and market conditions, can be quickly incorporated into the AI model, ensuring that companies can continuously utilize an AI model optimized specifically for their needs.
In this way, our ongoing efforts to adapt the value we provide in response to our clients’ growth and changing environments also contribute to our own growth. By continuing to support clients in solving medium- to long-term challenges, we deepen our relationships of trust with them, which in turn leads to a sustainable revenue base (improved LTV) that underpins our business.
Moving forward, UPWARD will continue to fulfill its role as an “AX Solution Partner” that consistently supports the competitiveness of our client companies.

Click here for more information about AX Consulting
https://upward.jp/ax-consulting/