Learn how one of mena’s largest manufacturing conglomerates is creating more efficient and sustainable solutions using the power of data-driven decisions.   When a sales rep from saveto group is demonstrating a solar-powered smart volumetric sensor to a technical buyer, they’re dealing with just one of hundreds of innovative construction products the company offers. So, how do they land the deal? By making sure they have technical knowledge, sales history, and company-wide input at their fingertips. Saveto is one of the biggest manufacturing conglomerates across the middle east and north africa, focusing on specialty building materials and solutions, finishing products, and chemicals for the construction industry. Looking to position itself as a progressive brand, the company is focused on purpose-led innovation in its markets, offering forward-thinking products and solutions to everyone from retailers, contractors, and technical consultants to homeowners. “customers are looking for new, smarter, and customised solutions at a pace that’s getting faster and faster. It’s a disruptive time and no one’s willing to compromise,” said rami ghanem, head of marketing at saveto. “this is why agile thinking and planning is so important.” This urgent mix of changes across the industry led saveto to start a digital transformation journey. In 2019, the company implemented salesforce to connect the different parts of the business, gain greater control of its value chain, and enhance brand perception. “we have to make decisions based on data to achieve our goals,” said sami hajjaj, chief digital officer at saveto. “but we needed better visibility and easy access across different teams to real-time data.”“we also needed a system that went beyond sales, and because of the diverse range of work we do across so many different teams and verticals, we needed to be able to customise our graphical user interface, dashboards, and reporting. With salesforce, you can do all of this easily and be up-and-running in no time,” said hajjaj.   1. Improve customer visibility for a data-driven sales strategy The first step to positive, impactful change for saveto was knowing what customers want. With sales cloud, the company gained instant access to customer insights. “sales cloud helps us deliver diagnostic observations for faster decisions – eliminating individual speculations,” hajjaj explained. The problem wasn’t data availability – salespeople were getting this every day when speaking to their customers. It’s just that tons of it got lost between on-the-ground conversations and top-level boardroom decision-making. The culprit? Monthly reports and excel spreadsheets with patchy information and limited accessibility. With salesforce, saveto has a system with one source of truth that’s easily accessible across departments. “now we have visibility in real-time, so you don’t have to wait until the end of the month for your sales report. In salesforce, it’s instantly accessible by whoever needs it – whether that’s a product specialist or the ceo,” said hajjaj. This has meant saveto can change its approach to cross-selling, upselling – and entire processes. For example, product teams were reassigned to target certain market segments and areas. Using sales cloud and salesforce maps, sales could identify market trends and competitors, and proactively adjust their team structure to accommodate for changing market needs. Whether it’s a mega project or a townhouse, salesforce has reduced data entry to its minimum, enabling the sales team to focus more on selling, have more accurate forecasting, and communicate seamlessly with other team members, while management enjoys end-to-end visibility on the process. “using salesforce, you can turn your previous knowledge gaps into success, which wasn’t possible before,” hajjaj said.   2. Accelerate sales cycles with company-wide collaboration Behind saveto’s drive to implement new technology was wanting to better serve its customers by building better solutions. To achieve this, everyone from sales and marketing to customer service and product development had to change their ways of working. They also had to rethink integration, not just across teams, but also across operating companies and subsidiaries. Salespeople are now able to log data around activities and products in sales cloud, which automatically shows them the entire project’s company-wide history and progress. This saves hours of manual input and avoids starting knowledge-building of each customer from scratch, allowing for better insights and collaboration across departments. “if one salesperson visits a project, that information is visible to everyone in every company across the group, which helps bring people together to curate better experiences and build more customised solutions,” hajjaj explained. “this wasn’t an option before because each entity used to work independently.” “when you bring together different companies with different products and different experiences and unify the information using salesforce,” added ghanem, “it speeds up the sales process and makes you more efficient at targeting customers and identifying what is relevant and what isn’t.” This has had a positive impact not only on sales figures, but also productivity. “once the number of projects undertaken by individual people year on year was visible to everyone, performance has improved,” ghanem explained. The system has also helped salespeople save valuable time. “it used to take around 30 minutes for the order to be logged into our erp system. Now you can do it in less than three,” hajjaj said. “in 2022 alone, salesforce saved us over 40,000 hours in data entry – and that’s coming from one department.” “it used to take around 30 minutes for the order to be logged into our erp system. Now you can do it in less than three. In 2022 alone, salesforce saved us over 40,000 hours in data entry – and that’s coming from one department.” Sami Hajjaj, Chief Digital Officer, Saveto Group   3. Optimise marketing and sales efficiency with real-time data This efficiency improvement extends to the sales process even on a micro-level. Saveto now has complete visibility over sales activities and how much time is spent across different customers, projects, and products.“traditionally, we witnessed lack of coordination between sales and specification teams, but now using sales cloud, they can deliver more value across projects. It also makes it easier to quantify our marketing efforts, as we can see the direct impact we have on sales,” ghanem said. Likewise, salesforce maps has helped drive efficiency out in the field. “using salesforce maps, we create weekly schedules for our sales and demo teams, and track the team’s progress in real-time,” hajjaj explained. “salesforce maps optimises our visit routes and enables our teams to instantly create and update new projects and customer demos.” Salesforce maps has been a gamechanger for helping both technical teams and salespeople nurture customer relationships  In saveto’s retail division, for example, technical demo teams visit applicators, contractors, and homeowners showcasing saveto’s wide range of products and solutions. They provide different material samples and, using salesforce maps, guide them to the nearest shop with product in stock.  Saveto’s market intelligence team can also collect product data from shops while gathering insights into best practice “this means we can identify trends in specific areas and see how we can leverage our added value, versus our competitors,” ghanem said.  “salesforce maps optimises our visit routes and enables our teams to instantly create and update new projects and customer demos.” Sami Hajjaj, Chief  Digital Officer, Saveto Group   4. Create sustainable solutions for the future using analytics Saveto’s management team can now better predict sales forecasting and company performance. Regional managers use crm analytics – embedded within sales cloud – to understand how products, regions and teams perform. “crm analytics connects our erp sales data with our salesforce data – which includes projects, shops, demos, and activities.” Hajjaj said. “this lets leaders benchmark sales performance against management’s sales and marketing plan. And ultimately, managers can adjust their plans swiftly according to market changes.” Managers can also identify any gaps in revenue and rectify them during regular sales meetings. The teams use dashboards to enhance visibility and prioritise what needs to be addressed. “the information goes upwards and downwards in the company because everyone has the same view. You don’t have to wait until someone provides it to you,” ghanem said. This democratisation of information has been critical for saveto’s transformation. “once you have clear insights into the market and can identify trends, you’re able to provide better products and expand into new segments,” said hajjaj. “salesforce has transformed the way we work internally and how we target new customers. But it’s also great to see the effect you leave on other stakeholders when you adopt more progressive ways of working,” said ghanem. “when we provide our customers with the best solutions, they create spaces that inspire a better quality of life,” added ghanem. “and with salesforce, we have a partnership that supports our innovation, generating better ideas and creating better possibilities.” "with salesforce, we have a partnership that supports our innovation, generating better ideas and creating better possibilities.” Rami ghanem, Head of Marketing, Saveto Group     Published on https://www.salesforce.com/eu/resources/customer-stories/saveto/