Miyachi Unitek taps Salesforce.com Consulting to quickly implement a unified business infrastructure

Full Case Study

Miyachi Unitek's tagline is "Spirit of Innovation." No surprise then that when the global manufacturing company needed to centralize its business systems it looked beyond traditional on-premises solutions to something different: Salesforce CRM and AppExchange from salesforce.com.

Miyachi Unitek is the world leader in equipment and systems for resistance and laser welding, laser marking, hermetic sealing, pulsed heat soldering, bonding and heat sealing, and wirebond pull testing—systems that bond disparate parts to create one, unbreakable unit. But with operations in 18 countries around the world, the Southern California-based company consistently faced business challenges that had a negative impact on productivity, efficiency, and as a result, revenue opportunities. At the heart of these challenges lay an outdated, incongruent business infrastructure.

Miyachi needed a business system that reflected its products—unbreakable and unified: a customer-focused business system that could sustain the company's continuity and competitive advantage.

"We've always tried to approach our business progressively," says Barbara Kuntz, marketing communications manager for Miyachi Unitek, reflecting on the company's subsequent transformation as a salesforce.com customer. "Leveraging one unified system empowers our company to perform more effectively—positioning us as the global leader we are today."

Wanted: One Customer-Focused Business System

It wasn't always so easy. Disjointed legacy systems prevented efficient operations. Outdated sales processes drained productivity. Salespeople nestled in their comfort zones, using various homegrown applications. Sales managers lacked a complete, real-time view into their pipeline. As the company grew, scaling the sales organization to sophisticated global account selling practices became increasingly difficult.

The lack of visibility affected production and resource planning. The company's enterprise resource planning (ERP) program was not integrated with the sales process. As a result, even if the company could establish accurate sales forecasts—which were always a challenge—it would be unable to support just-in-time supply-chain processes or effective inventory management. On the marketing end, Kuntz couldn't validate the effectiveness of lead-generation campaigns.

After considering Microsoft CRM, Siebel On Premise, and SalesLogix, Miyachi Unitek chose salesforce.com's flexible solution for managing sales and business operations.

Salesforce.com's powerful Force.com, which would enable the company to develop, customize, and integrate applications, was also a big draw.

Quick Time to Value, Return on Investment with Salesforce.com Consulting 

Miyachi Unitek wanted to deploy Salesforce CRM globally, but the IT department consisted of just one person, and the company had no internal programmers. "We considered using third-party contractors, but no one knows Salesforce CRM like salesforce.com, so we turned to the Salesforce.com Consulting team," says Kuntz.

Drawing on experience gained from more than 2,400 customer implementations, Salesforce.com Consulting successfully aligned Miyachi Unitek's business processes by customizing and integrating applications over a central system, using Salesforce CRM Sales, Salesforce CRM Marketing, and Salesforce CRM Service. The group also leveraged Force.com to integrate Miyachi Unitek's ERP application with its customer-facing applications and used Force.com's builder to customize new and existing applications. An Outlook Mail tab now integrates Webmail into Salesforce CRM, and a Product Configurator tab allows salespeople to query products based on desired features and functions, speeding quote generation.

The first phase of implementation took just three months. "I think that the Salesforce.com Consulting team saved us close to three months of implementation time," Kuntz says. "We avoided some costly administrative headaches."

Visible Improvements

With the implementation, now rolled out to 18 countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, salespeople can instantly access contacts generated by marketing and inside sales and qualify opportunities faster. Marketing is better equipped to validate campaigns, and accurate sales forecasts create more effective anticipation of product demand. One hundred percent visibility enhances supply-chain management, and improved sophistication in resource planning enables the company to maintain lower inventories. Plus, with production schedules aligned with forecasts, order entries and fulfillment are more predictable.

"Our VP of sales attributes Salesforce CRM with enabling us to achieve our sales goals in the last financial year. Visibility into our pipeline allowed him to see which deals were near closing so he could 'book and burn' at the end of each quarter. Salesforce CRM gives us the kind of business insight that no other solution could offer," says Kuntz.

Customization Helps Drive Adoption

Despite initial concerns about adoption, sales, marketing, production, and executives quickly embraced the system. Miyachi Unitek's sales teams around the globe use a custom-designed object within Salesforce CRM Salesto easily enter customer requests for product samples. Because the sales representatives can now track this case status within the Salesforce CRM application, they no longer need to call the applications group for updates, resulting in a 70 percent reduction in calls and saving the company both time and money.

"The ability to easily customize the Salesforce CRM applications for our unique manufacturing industry-specific needs is something that no other solution on the market offered," says Jim Malloy, vice president of sales. "Using Salesforce CRM, we are able to share information across applications and around the globe with no extra work from our IT department. We have gained significant improvements in our operations, with reduced overall cost."

Lasting Benefits—Now and Later

It doesn't stop there. Salesforce.com Consulting consistently updates Miyachi Unitek's task force on future product enhancements, enabling the company to proactively plan its system's evolution.

"In my experience, few companies share product road-map information with anyone other than their executive-level staff. Salesforce.com, on the other hand, shares this information not only with its employees on every level but also with its customers," Kuntz says. "Salesforce.com's proactive approach to considering the lifespan of its solution—and empowering its customers to do the same—is refreshing. Salesforce.com employees are plugged into what's happening at the company. They know their business—and that's rare." 

Miyachi Unitek Corporation