Yanmar Europe goes live with SAP Sales Cloud in less than 3 months

To improve their understanding of their customer data, Yanmar decided to implement SAP’s customer experience solutions on top of its existing ERP system, SAP Cloud ERP (formerly SAP S/4HANA). This now provides them with a comprehensive 360° view of customer data.

From silo’ed data to 360° view

Yanmar recognised that its customer data, dispersed across various departments, limited the company’s ability to fully capitalise on sales opportunities. Centralising this information became a vital step in creating a more connected, customer-focused organisation.

Furthermore, Yanmar recognised that sales and services teams across the organisation had developed their own ways of working, with varying levels of digital maturity. Aligning these approaches became a crucial step in establishing a unified, efficient, and future-ready way of operating.

Clear goals, one step at a time

The goal of implementing the SAP Customer Experience suite was to provide consistent and efficient processes for the sales and service teams across relevant business units. There were a few key objectives:

• Enhanced customer focus: By streamlining sales processes, SAP Sales Cloud enables proactive customer management and helps deliver better service to customers.
• Centralisation of customer information: Yanmar wanted to create a 360° customer view by eliminating fragmented data and breaking down departmental silos. This facilitates a stronger cooperation between sales, service, and other departments to ensure a seamless customer experience and unified business approach.
• Uniform and scalable sales process: This project harmonises sales processes across different units to enhance collaboration, user adoption and better capitalise on commercial opportunities. For example, by taking advantage of the guided selling functionality within SAP Sales Cloud.
• Adoption of a digital way of working: Replacing non-digital and inefficient methods with a standardised, user-friendly CRM platform with high adoption rates and minimise the risk of data that is solely in the minds of sales and therefore not available across departments. Reducing administrative tasks to create more room for relationship management and proactive sales activities.

Phased approach to innovation

Yanmar is taking a phased approach to improve their customer experience journey, with SAP Sales Cloud only the first step. The next steps include both SAP Service Cloud and innovations within SAP Sales Cloud.

‘In the past, we faced challenges with the CRM due to low user adoption’, says Carlo Giudici, Chief Commercial Officer at Yanmar Europe. ‘This was primarily caused by limited functionality, slow performance, and poor user experience. The connection with the YEU ERP was also not ideal, resulting in irrelevant customer data and user frustration. With this project, we are now confident about the future use of the CRM.’

‘Yanmar faced a firm and challenging go-live date due to the previous CRM nearing the end of its life,’ says Ruben van Soest, Project Manager CX at Aiden. ‘Yanmar and Aiden proved that with the right partnership, expertise, and determination, even the most challenging CRM project can go live smoothly, on time, and with full enthusiasm!’