How Kawasaki Engines Drove $6.5M in 90 Days With ForeFront and Salesforce

If you manage complex dealer networks, you know that legacy technologies can limit both your team and your buyers. As a leading manufacturer of engines and parts for lawn, landscape, and other commercial and residential equipment, Kawasaki serves customers through a nationwide network of OEMs, distributors, and independent dealers.

Supporting more than 7,700 dealers meant finding a better way to connect people, products, and service across an increasingly complex and distributed technology landscape. While Kawasaki’s legacy LANSA-based ERP system had served the business well for decades, it had reached its functional limit.

Legacy systems create challenges for dealers

Inefficient workflows, outdated user experiences, and a lack of system integration created challenges for both Kawasaki and its dealers. Customer care teams faced heavy manual workloads, while dealers constantly jumped between disconnected systems to sell products. They needed a unified, self-service portal that would give dealers round-the-clock access to order parts, pay invoices, file warranty claims, and access tools in one place.

Partnering with ForeFront to transform the dealer experience

That’s where Salesforce consulting and implementation partner ForeFront came in. ForeFront specializes in enterprise digital transformation, multi-cloud integrations, and industry-specific AI solutions. They brought  expertise across technology, data, business processes, and change management. To deliver a frictionless dealer experience without inflating project costs, ForeFront leveraged AI-enabled tools like Claude alongside headless capabilities. This approach allowed the team to build an Amazon-grade user experience faster and within budget—meeting dealers where they are.

Together, Kawasaki and ForeFront set out to transform the dealer experience, creating an agile, self-service environment where dealers could find parts and place orders in seconds, not hours.

Working with current systems to transform data

Modernization didn’t mean starting over. Rather than ripping and replacing Kawasaki’s core systems, ForeFront took a thoughtful, phased approach.

ForeFront brought together dedicated teams across three key areas, combining a deep understanding of Kawasaki’s business processes with technology and data expertise, along with training and change management. Getting the team bought in early was key to driving adoption. Rallying internal stakeholders around immediate improvements, such as live inventory, quicker ordering, self-service invoicing, and ACH, built strong momentum ahead of go-live.

A critical part of that work was connecting Salesforce with Kawasaki’s legacy AS/400 based ERP system, LANSA. The integration enabled data to move between platforms, helping eliminate manual bottlenecks created by disconnected systems and outdated batch processes. ForeFront also provided strategic support to help Kawasaki implement the transformation in phases and build a flexible architecture while protecting the core systems the business still relied on.

With that architecture in place, ForeFront brought together Salesforce B2B Commerce, Data Cloud, MuleSoft, while developing integrations with other Salesforce products, like Manufacturing Cloud, to create a unified commerce and customer service experience. Kawasaki was replatformed onto Salesforce B2B Commerce with an always-on storefront that brought ordering, invoicing, warranty claims, and service tools into a single purchasing experience.

Measurable results in just 90 days

The impact was clear within the first 90 days, with strong revenue growth, higher order values, increased dealer engagement, and greater capacity to serve customers.

“Kawasaki was able to recognize significant value in the first 90 days: over $ 6.5 million in revenue was generated, a 5x jump – which is wild. That is showing us it’s easier for the customers to order what they order.”

Christopher Cooke, VP, Manufacturing Process, ForeFront, an EPAM company, 

The results demonstrate how B2B Commerce can scale sales and customer customer support without increasing internal resources:

• $6.5 million+ in revenue generated through the B2B Commerce experience in the first 90 days, exceeding targets by fivefold.
• 5x increase in average order value, rising from about $100 to $450-550 per order.
• $25 million in total spare parts sales, including a 259% increase in single-engine sales.
• 1,000+ storefront visits per week, with hundreds of unique dealer logins each day.
• 24/7 customer support without additional headcount, allowing Kawasaki to expand service without adding internal roles.

“This implementation really transformed our business, and we centralized a lot of the data into the Salesforce platform, unifying it through MuleSoft.”

Tony Gondick, Sr. Manager, IT Business Strategy, Kawasaki

While these metrics reflect Kawasaki’s unique environment, the true impact goes far deeper: Salesforce gives manufacturers a flexible, scalable platform to reshape their operations. The initial figures are impressive, but the real story is month-over-month consistency, proving that ongoing reliability and a seamless user experience matter far more than initial curiosity visits.

Building toward an agentic future

With the commerce experience delivering measurable results, Kawasaki and ForeFront are now looking at how the same technology framework can support more customers, buying groups, and use cases across the business.

Kawasaki has already deployed an Agentforce-powered Service Agent to work with the unique needs of their dealer community and proactive support for their OEM network as well.

The next step is to drive further customer adoption and scale the unified platform across five distinct buying groups: dealers, OEMs, distributors, resellers, and exporters. With a flexible architecture in place, Kawasaki can continue improving the dealer experience while expanding what’s possible across the business.

The transformation also shows how manufacturers can modernize outdated, manual workflows without ripping and replacing the core systems their businesses rely on. By connecting those systems through a modern commerce, data, and AI platform, Kawasaki has created a foundation for continued growth and innovation.

As Kawasaki’s Tony Gondick puts it: “Now that Agentforce is being even more tightly integrated into the platform, there’s going to be so many new ways of using this technology, I say the sky is really the limit!”