The client
SAI Global provides organisations around the world with information services and solutions for managing risk, achieving compliance and driving business improvement.
The challenge
From cosmetics to cars and aircraft to oil fields, the sheer volume of standards, regulations, directives and legislation to which manufacturers must adhere is truly mindboggling. There are well over one million worldwide engineering standards and specifications. The military has over 800,000. And if you’re designing a new pipeline for the German market or manufacturing a component for a next generation submarine, for example, there are over 79,000 metal grades to take into account.
Compliance with this raft of standards and regulation as set out by publishers, governments and trade bodies – from the British Standards Institute (BSI) in the UK to the International Standards for Business (ISO) – is all part of a day’s work for manufacturers.
For the past six decades, helping firms buy, access and navigate this complex web of global data has been SAI Global’s key area of focus. And it’s why it has remained one of the leaders in its field for so long.
As an organisation with business intelligence at its very core, SAI Global recognises the value of achieving an in-depth understanding of its own customers and their markets. However, its customer information, stored in a legacy customer relationship management (CRM) system had been churned so many times it was becoming outdated and inaccurate. And this was beginning to impact on the effectiveness of its sales and marketing campaigns.
Also, without accurate customer intelligence the organisation was unable to effectively develop the strategic customer acquisition programmes it needed to remain ahead of the game. SAI Global needed a fresh approach; one that would not only guarantee the accuracy of its customer and market intelligence but, through effective management, ensure its data would grow and remain relevant as the business expanded into new markets and regions.
The solution
The decision to adopt Hoover’s from D&B was taken after a detailed bench marking of competing solutions in the market. According to Julie-Anne Gyton, marketing manager in the Information Services Division at SAI Global, it was the only tool capable of delivering the comprehensive insight and analysis the company needed to extend existing customer relationships and break into new markets.
Gyton said, “It wasn’t just about giving us the ability to generate contact lists of prospect businesses; we needed so much more. One of the ways we win business is based on our understanding of the markets in which we operate, and the associated customer pain points. This gives our sales force the ability to have a peer-to-peer conversation with prospects, to offer the right solutions from our service portfolio and to solve a problem for them.
“It was clear from the very start that the Hoover’s database could help with such insights, ensuring we could add real value to customers and prospects.”
But a database of information on more than 65 million organisations around the world and over 85 million executives wasn’t the only reason why Hoover’s was selected. Critical to the decision making process was the ease of integration with SAI Global’s new salesforce.com CRM system.
Gyton explains, “Having taken the decision to replace our legacy CRM system with Salesforce.com we wanted to ensure that new prospect lists could be exported directly to the system. We’d already spent a long time updating and de-duplicating our existing contact databases, and that wasn’t a process we wanted to go through again.”
For SAI Global the winning vendor had to understand its business. According to Gyton the success of the tool would be measured by its adoption, and that required a comprehensive training programme. “We wanted our sales and marketing teams to be quick to adopt the tool, and the only way to do that would be to highlight its value. But people don’t read manuals so comprehensive onsite training was needed.”
“The Hoover’s account managers took the time to really understand us; no simple task as we’re a complex business. This meant they were able to deliver tailored training to colleagues across the business, highlighting the specific areas of functionality that would be most relevant to their day to day jobs.”
With adoption across the UK head office, and across Europe sales and marketing, Hoover’s is now being rolled out in North America.
The Bottom Line
Nine months in and Hoover’s is already making a contribution to the development of sales and marketing strategies across SAI Global. External facing teams are using Hoover’s to build prospect lists and taking advantage of the detailed information and company analysis to better target their pitches to the most relevant decision makers.
Gyton says, “Although our sales may not have spoken to a prospect in the past, our teams already understand their businesses, their pain points and their markets before they pick up the phone. Because we have confidence in our data, we are more confident, more targeted and more relevant when delivering our pitch. And that means we win more business.”
The future will increasingly see SAI Global’s sales and marketing departments use Hoover’s to deliver more effective digital campaigns to prospects and customers, focusing on up-selling new products and services to existing customers. It will also be used to understand, address and unlock markets which have proved challenging for the company in the past.
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“Delivering the very best intelligence is the core of our offer to customers. Thanks to Hoover’s this same philosophy now sits at the heart of our own customer acquisition and growth strategies too.”
Julie-Anne Gyton, marketing manager (EMEA), information services, SAI Global
