DUHA GROUP

Salesforce tracks the order process after sales — from the time we get the purchase order to the final dispatch date.”

ZOE SVEINSON, SALES & MARKETING ADMINISTRATOR AT DUHA GROUP
 

Duha Group innovates by inviting their customers into the manufacturing process using Salesforce.

Duha Group is an amazing company – They are a 3rd generation family run business in Winnipeg, Manitoba that started 60 years ago in the printing industry and has developed a specialization in manufacturing color marketing and matching – they make color paint samples, paint fan-decks and color systems for paint companies across the globe. You don’t get to be a 60-year-old manufacturer by standing still – they are a passionate company focused on innovation, sustainability and most importantly, their customer.
They’ve been traditionally focused on increasing efficiency in their manufacturing process, listening to their employees on how to make things better and faster. “But what we found was our bottle-neck became our logistics. How information was getting from the customer to the people that needed it - and then back to the customer”, says Rick Duha, Global Operations Excellence Coordinator.

The paint industry has been rapidly consolidating, reducing the number of potential customers for Duha, making those remaining larger customers even more important. “We needed to engage with our customers in a way that made them want to do business with us”, says Douglas Crabb, Global Director, Sales and Marketing.

 

It’s so intuitive to build an object, to completely redesign your business around the tools that Salesforce offers.”

RICK DUHA, GLOBAL OPERATIONS EXCELLENCE COORDINATOR AT DUHA GROUP

Their Customer Experience Coordinators use Chatter Groups and invite their customers into private collaboration workspaces to exchange documents, provide approvals, share updates, listen to and engage with their customers 24x7 and in multiple languages.

Once Duha figured out how easy it was to deploy Chatter and Sales Cloud, they turned to force.com to help them streamline operations in their plant. “It’s so intuitive to build an object, to completely redesign your business around the tools that Salesforce offers”, says Rick Duha.

Duha used force.com to build an object called Charters. It tracks an order from the time it’s entered to the time it’s shipped. Flat screen TV’s in the plant dashboard the real-time status of all the orders, showing all the employees the ones that need attention. It automatically reminds customers of when approvals are needed to keep their orders on track. Now everything is visible to everyone and new metrics can be optimized. They eliminated 17 spreadsheets in 2.5 weeks, and they’ve eliminated 125,000 emails a year! Most importantly, they’ve opened up their virtual factory doors and increased their transparency to their customers, engaging them in entirely new ways.

Chatter has been a game-changer for Duha, connecting their employees, customers, and partners together, around the globe. Now everyone has direct access to everyone necessary. Information flows quickly, innovation happens faster, and customer satisfaction climbs. “I was used to waking up in the morning to 50 emails from Asia, Europe and Australia. Now I had a Chatter feed of everything going on in the company - it was no more than a week that it became more important to me than my morning coffee and newspaper”, says Emeric (Rick) Duha, Managing Director.

Duha always knew their customer was at the heart of their business, and Salesforce has helped them to truly be a customer company – connecting with their customers, employees, partners and even their manufacturing floor like never before.

 

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