Canon Marketing Japan Integrates Data on 36 Million Customers with Salesforce for Precision Opportunity Management

“Salesforce enabled us to integrate data on 36 million customers with a flexible CRM system. By sharing this information, we’ve been able to enhance our responsiveness to customers, improve opportunity management and increase deal closure rates. I expect great and interesting things for the future.”

Overview
Challenge
  • Improve customer response with a shared customer database
  • Better coordination on strategies; manage opportunities more precisely
  • Development of a flexible front office system to accommodate business model changes
Solution
  • Canon MJ deployed Salesforce Enterprise Edition; custom interfaces satisfy multiple business process needs and address various groups
  • Leveraged Force.com platform to integrate with Oracle E-Business Suite and data on 36 million customers'
  • Mobile access to key Salesforce records
Results
  • Sharing of customer information, better business planning, detailed and coordinated front-line execution
  • Meticulous management of sales opportunities and streamlined work, thanks to improved communication speed and quality among team members
  • Increased number of quality sales opportunities, improved contract closure rate and group contribution
  • Better data and decreased overtime due to mobile CRM access
Full Story
Canon Marketing Japan Incorporated (Canon MJ), a core business of the Global Canon Group, provides customer solutions in three areas—business solutions, consumer equipment, and industrial equipment. In recent years, the company has focused on transforming itself into a provider of information services. As part of this transformation, Canon MJ implemented Salesforce as its front-office system. The company integrated key data from 36 million customers with Salesforce, and built a shared group database. Using this system, the company has mobilized sales to focus on key customers and manage opportunities with laser-like precision.

Salesforce is Key to Responding Rapidly to Changing Business Models

In 2005, Canon MJ launched a company-wide project to reorganize its customer response processes. One of the most important themes for this project was building a customer database leveraging CRM and SFA.

“At our company, we keep enormous amounts of data on our multi-function machine customers,” says Hiroaki Sasaki, business solutions administration director, and project manager for Canon MJ’s business solutions company. “However, that data was used for billing and maintenance, and did not satisfy the demands of a shared group CRM/SFA system.”

In a market where competitive dynamics and business models are constantly changing, information that helps solidify customer relationships is the foundation of a business. If companies do not share information among different teams, customer service suffers. Inefficient servicing is also problematic from a resource distribution standpoint. For these reasons, managing customer data was a top priority for the Canon MJ.

To create a customer database, the company had three choices--develop its own application, purchase packaged software, or use a hosted, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution. Developing its own application was not an option due to time constraints. The company estimated it would take two to three years, starting from gathering information on specific requirements to completing development. Furthermore, it would be difficult to satisfy all the diverse needs of multiple divisions within the company. Packaged software was also problematic because the company would have to depend on numerous systems engineers for customizations and ongoing fine tuning. The system would not be able to keep up with business requirements. Canon MJ determined that the SaaS model would best suit its needs; the company chose Salesforce, the SaaS pioneer. Salesforce [WHICH EDITION?] was the only solution that had a flexible enough architecture to make changes for specific users or company divisions.

“We chose Salesforce for three reasons,” says Sasaki. “The first was to satisfy many different business process needs. Although not immediate, we expected the need for upgrades. Secondly, we wanted a system that would run reliably. Lastly, we had an overwhelming number of users already, and wanted a system which translated their knowledge and wisdom into new functions. For these reasons, we decided implementing Salesforce would be the smartest move.”

“Each group company had created its front office system separately because each had different business processes," recalls Kimihisa Kotegawa, director, IT Systems, for Canon MJ. "In 2003, we integrated Oracle’s E-Business Suite (Oracle EBS) and unified areas such as orders and accounting, and the customer master database."

It was Salesforce's ease of customization that accommodated those different business processes. This was key for Kotegawa. Once he saw for himself how easy it was to customize the application, he became a strong advocate of Salesforce. Says Kotegawa, “With Salesforce, we can share one database, and at the same time satisfy each user’s needs by slightly adjusting the interface and logic.” The adjustments in interface and logic are a standard customization function available to users, so the IT systems division does not need to intervene.

Salesforce Integrates With Data on 36 Million Accounts in Core System

Canon MJ integrated 22 file types managed by Oracle EBS with Salesforce. The system is designed so the core system transfers data on customer information, maintenance agreements, sales results and authorized client terminals to Salesforce. In turn, Salesforce transfers data on sales opportunities to the core system, which then provides estimates and ordering processes.

Over 36 million accounts are linked to Salesforce through a tool called Data Loader, which updates customer information once every ten minutes, and sales opportunities once every five minutes. The core system and the data link use the Force.com Web service API. The company developed the system in approximately four months with five systems engineers who identified requirements and conducted all testing.

“We did not create reports for defining business or systems requirements,” says Sasaki. “We developed the system working closely with users on a trial and error basis in a sort of ‘short story’ format dictated by CRM /SFA processes. Our needs change frequently, so and it didn’t make sense putting it on paper. This may seem like an arbitrary method from a systems developer’s point of view, but the process was quick, easy and smooth. It wasn’t really a problem. We developed the systems the same way we use Filemaker.” The front office system has the flexibility to support frequent business model changes. “When our needs change, front-office users can adapt to these changes. I like that flexibility,” adds Kotegawa.

Sales representatives in the field can also access Salesforce from their mobile phones, and confirm their customers’ situations prior to sales calls. Since sales people can input reports and schedules via mobile phone, overtime work has decreased significantly more than expected.

Canon MJ is now at the stage where sales representatives are testing reporting and scheduling functions. In the future, they would like to integrate activities information with sales opportunities and customer information to manage all opportunities in detail as well as streamline reporting. Furthermore, Canon MJ plans to implement a more coordinated marketing approach.

“Our first phase is to manage sales opportunities in detail, and make our customer activities more precise,” says Sasaki regarding Salesforce use. “Furthermore, we are planning to streamline our activities by improving communication speed and quality among the team. In our next phase, we want to use Salesforce for strategies that a completely coordinated. Since we started using Salesforce, we now see things that we could not see before, and I can now visualize things that I could not visualize previously. I expect great and interesting things for the future.”

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