K.W. Metal Work increases sales and productivity with data and AI

K.W. Metal Work struggled with limited visibility into sales, hindering efficiency and growth. Unifying data with Salesforce has helped break down bottlenecks and enabled a 30% increase in revenue for its PEGASUS business unit.

K.W. Metal Work aims to produce the most advanced agricultural equipment in Thailand. The business applies cutting-edge technology to continually innovate and enhance manufacturing methods, as well as the customer experience. Starting out as a family-owned business, K.W. Metal Work transitioned to a public company in 2018. 

K.W. Metal Work has a highly mobile sales team that visits customers and sells products all over Thailand. Prior to implementing Salesforce, there was no system to capture the team’s activity or the discussions they had when visiting customers. While daily phone calls to sales reps helped management stay informed, the calls consumed valuable time and did not provide a complete picture of the team’s activities. It was also difficult to track sales and get granular insights into trends and opportunities. 

Disconnected data and manual processes created bottlenecks and hindered sales productivity. Simple questions about inventory required a call to the factory, and it could take up to two hours to get an answer. Decision-making was also slowed down by the lack of data available to management. 

Bringing in Sales Cloud addressed these challenges. However, the company needed to increase automation to keep up with the rise in transaction volumes.

With Sales Cloud, K.W. Metal Work’s management team no longer needs to constantly check in with sales reps to track how the business is performing. All activities and customer interactions are now captured within the CRM, providing valuable insights to drive future growth. For example, management can see which customers have been visited the most often, and which need more attention. They can spot trends and patterns, such as when customers are most likely to use a certain product or require replacement of parts. 

These insights help the sales team prioritise their efforts and cover a large territory with fewer resources than it needed in the past. The team is also driving year-on-year-growth, with revenues up 30% within the PEGASUS business unit, which focuses on the company’s branded products

With support from Thailand-based partner CRM Consulting (CRM-C), K.W. Metal Work has deployed Tableau and Slack to do more with its data, and to increase productivity. Tableau connects to the company’s ERP to provide deeper insights into sales and any bottlenecks impacting conversions and deliveries. Tableau integration with the ERP also provides visibility into inventory, helping the company predict future requirements more accurately and enabling more efficient operations and fewer supply disruptions. 

Tableau also provides near real-time visibility into what's happening on the production floor. The timely insights enable the business to quickly identify and respond to subtle changes in the production line, helping to reduce product defects by 60%. 

Slack Sales Elevate brings data into the flow of work, eliminating the need for manual data extracts which were previously circulated at the end of each day.  Now, team members can bring up key data at any time using a simple slash command in Slack. 

“With Slack, I can track deal status, due date or progress at every step—all from my mobile phone. Everything I need is at my fingertips, and my team is amazed at how quickly I respond to help solve issues,” said Ukrit Vanagosoom, Deputy Managing Director, K.W. Metal Work. 

Slack is used extensively by the PEGASUS business unit. With increased visibility and collaboration across sales, Slack helps the team to make quick adjustments to secure the right deals and close them more effectively, reducing customer loss from 3% to 0%, thereby maintaining a 100% customer retention rate.

The PEGASUS business unit is also on track to achieve 100 million Thai Baht this year and continues its steady growth, supported by Salesforce.

After achieving a significant increase in sales, K.W. Metal Work has turned its focus to streamlining and automating processes to better support employees and customers. Service Cloud and Agentforce will help it do both. For example, with Agentforce, K.W. Metal Work can provide 24/7 service to its farming customers who start their day in the early hours of the morning and are often in a hurry to get answers to their questions. 

In the future, agents could support customers to check inventory and place orders online—freeing up employees to spend more time visiting customers in the field.

Salesforce provides K.W. Metal Work with a complete platform for growth. Sales Cloud unifies data and provides insights that help sales reps prioritise their efforts and accelerate deals. Tableau provides even deeper insights on trends and performance, helping K.W. Metal Work adapt and harness opportunities to drive more revenue. Slack brings data into the flow of work and centralises collaboration to speed up decision making.

The future use of Agentforce will help K.W. Metal Work scale its workforce with digital labour and power limitless growth. K.W. Metal Work also plans to adopt MuleSoft which will help bring together more of the data that team members and agents need to work.