UPWARD Publishes a Case Study on Hanamaru Co., Ltd.

UPWARD Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director and CEO: Ryusuke Kaneki; hereinafter “UPWARD”) has published an interview on its official website featuring Hanamaru Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture; Representative Director and Chairman: Kazuya Okazaki; hereinafter “Hanamaru”), operator of the used car buying and sales service “Sokokara,” discussing how the company utilizes “UPWARD.”

Case Study: https://upward.jp/case/hanamaru/

Background of the "UPWARD" Implementation: Gaps in Sales Visits and the Risk of Customer Churn Resulting from Sales Practices Relying on Individual Instincts

In Hanamaru’s used car purchasing business, building and maintaining personal relationships with dealers and repair shops on a daily basis is essential for sourcing vehicles—such as those involved in accidents—whose availability is difficult to predict. However, a systematic door-to-door sales approach yielded results that were difficult to replicate, and even when left to individual sales representatives, they tended to focus on the same, familiar prospects. As a result, gaps emerged in coverage—both in terms of geographic areas and time periods—that could not be fully addressed, creating a risk that potential deals would be lost to competitors during those gaps.Furthermore, in a busy environment where sales representatives make 10 field visits per day, it was difficult to establish a consistent practice of submitting daily reports, making it challenging to systematically accumulate data.

Key Factor in Adoption: Enhancing the Information in Daily Reports While Reducing the Workload on Frontline Staff

To eliminate these inefficient sales calls, the company implemented “UPWARD.” The key factors in its selection were as follows:

・Reduced data entry burden: Drafts of daily reports that reflect visit locations and times are automatically generated based on mobile location data.
・Accumulation of sales data: Data can be accumulated as an asset through integration with Salesforce.

Benefits of Implementation: Establishing "clear visit criteria" based on data has led to improved business performance

Since the system was implemented, we’ve been able to establish clear criteria for prioritizing visits by multiplying the coverage area by the number of days since the last visit. Because the map is easy to view even while on the go, “stop-by visits” during spare moments have become more common. This has increased the number of productive visits, leading to actual improvements in business performance. Furthermore, a mindset has taken root in the field that “sales data is a company asset, not an individual’s personal record,” and the cycle of data accumulation and utilization has begun to take shape.

[The Case Studies page provides more detailed information on the following topics]

・Behind the Scenes: How We Transformed Daily Reports—Which Tend to Become a Formality—Into “Sales Area Data” That Drives Better Results
・The Process for Creating Efficient Visit Schedules That Eliminates “Just Going Out to the Field”
・Future Outlook for Becoming a More Data-First Organization, With an Eye Toward AI Adoption

▼ Click here to read the full interview and see how it’s being used:
https://upward.jp/case/hanamaru/

UPWARD" INNOVATES THE LAST MILE IN THE FIELD

"UPWARD" is an AI-powered sales support service specialized for field sales and customer visits. logcustomer touchpointlog the company’s proprietary "advanced geofencing technology," as well as log AI log. It has been adopted by approximately 450 companies—primarily major corporations such as Kubota, Rinnai, and Shizuoka Bank, where face-to-face interactions with customers serve as the primary sales channel—and is being utilized as a next-generation sales platform.

UPWARD introductory materials: https://upward.jp/downloads/allservicematerials/