Yamaguchi Financial Group Introduces "UPWARD," a Field Sales Support Service, to digital transformation in Sales

UPWARD Inc. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director and CEO: Ryusuke Kaneki; hereinafter “UPWARD”) is pleased to announce that Yamaguchi Financial Group Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shimonoseki City, Yamaguchi Prefecture; Representative Director and CEO: Keisuke Mukurashi; hereinafter “YMFG”) has adopted the “UPWARD” field sales support service digital transformation.

At YMFG, digital transformation on digital transformation across the three group banks: Yamaguchi Bank, Momiji Bank, and Kitakyushu Bank. By centrally integrating and leveraging customer information, sales activities, and project data to support sales representatives, we aim to deepen our understanding of customers, enhance our ability to make proposals, and free up time for customer interactions.

The implementation of "UPWARD" will help streamline field sales activities, creating an environment where sales representatives can devote more time to engaging with customers and identifying their needs. In addition to providing the system, UPWARD will support digital transformation efforts by assisting with the adoption and integration of the system.

Background: Deepening Customer Understanding and Driving digital transformation

YMFG is a financial group with its primary business base in Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka, comprising three banks: Yamaguchi Bank, Momiji Bank, and Kitakyushu Bank. Guided by its purpose of “co-creating a prosperous future for the region,” the group conducts community-based corporate and retail banking operations.

In recent years, the needs of local businesses and individual customers have become increasingly sophisticated and diverse. Financial institutions are now expected to go beyond simply proposing products; they must identify customers’ underlying challenges and engage in sales activities that support them over the long term.

In light of this environment, YMFG is working to transition from a traditional “management-centric” sales approach to a “support-centric” style that supports sales representatives’ activities through a CRM overhaul. Specifically, by leveraging customer information and sales activity data to streamline visit planning, reduce the burden log, and enhance data-driven sales activities, we aim to create a system that allows sales representatives to focus more on engaging with customers and solving their problems.

The implementation of "UPWARD" is part of these digital transformation initiatives and is designed to support its use in the field during sales calls.

Expected Benefits of Using UPWARD

At YMFG, we expect UPWARD to deliver the following benefits for our field sales activities.

1. Visualizing Field Sales Activities

UPWARD allows users to combine information about client visits and sales activities with maps and activity data. At YMFG, we are actively working to accumulate and utilize sales activity data, with a focus on CRM. By leveraging UPWARD, we aim to gain a clearer understanding of field sales activities, which will help streamline visit planning and customer follow-ups.

This helps enable data-driven sales activities that do not rely too heavily on individual sales representatives' experience and intuition.

2. Improving the quality and quantity customer touchpoint

digital transformation, expanding our understanding of customers and deepening the value we provide are key priorities. By leveraging UPWARD, we aim to improve the quality and quantity customer touchpoint by streamlining the visit schedules of field sales representatives and standardizing previously ad-hoc activities.

By helping sales representatives use their daily activity data to easily identify which customers to visit, what information to review, and what actions to take next, we support them in providing attentive customer follow-up and making proposals based on specific challenges.

Future Developments

At YMFG, we are taking a phased approach to ensuring the CRM system—which went live in March 2026—is fully adopted by our sales teams, leveraging the data it contains, and enhancing its functionality. Moving forward, we plan to further evolve our support for sales representatives by utilizing the customer information and sales activity data accumulated in the CRM, while also aiming to advance our use of Next Best Action (NBA) and AI.

UPWARD will support YMFG’s digital transformation by providing assistance with field sales activities.

Comment from Yamaguchi Financial Group Co., Ltd.

Mr. Takehisa Yamane, General Manager of the digital transformation Strategy Department

Through digital transformation initiatives, Yamaguchi Financial Group is working to build a sales structure that enables sales representatives to gain a deeper understanding of customers and make optimal proposals that leverage the Group’s comprehensive strengths.

By leveraging UPWARD, we aim to streamline field sales visits and create an environment where sales representatives can devote more time to engaging with customers and identifying their needs.

We will continue to advance our use of data, with a focus on CRM, to help solve our customers’ core challenges and support the growth of local businesses.

UPWARD" INNOVATES THE LAST MILE IN THE FIELD

"UPWARD" is a sales support service specialized for field sales and customer visits. It offers logcustomer touchpointlogcustomer touchpoint our patented "advanced geofencing" technology, as well as various features tailored to field sales. It is primarily adopted by companies that rely on face-to-face interactions with customers as their main sales channel.
Service Site: https://upward.jp/
"UPWARD" Brochure: https://upward.jp/downloads/allservicematerials/