Panasonic expands CRM system

Panasonic is rolling out a new global CRM and marketing automation system after seeing a 50% increase in marketing activity in the past two years without extra budget.
The bulk of the company’s revenue, totalling $75bn a year, comes from B2B products, including batteries for electric cars, in-flight entertainment systems, and projectors.
But within its separate businesses, customer data was previously in silos, meaning marketing teams and call centre staff were unable to effectively use the customer information Panasonic held from direct customer contact as well as its website traffic analytics.
Using a platform built with a combination of software – including Salesforce, Marketo, Qlikview alongside its SAP finance system – the firm’s European division integrated its sales, marketing and call centre customer data systems. This increased its email campaigns and leads for sales with no extra marketing spend.
European business-to-business marketing director Stephen Yeo said: “We have had a pipeline growth of 50% since launch with no additional resources, just pure efficiency and execution.”
Panasonic’s system, which is used by 310 employees in Europe, allows it to execute five more campaigns per month, but although the CRM system “is absolutely key”, it is not enough to generate new leads, Yeo said.
He added: “CRM only covers ‘prospects’ and ‘customers’, it does not handle the ‘suspect’ to ‘prospect’ stage. We wanted to design a holistic architecture that could handle the whole thing.” The platform is now being rolled out internationally.