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Customer Story

Access to Data Leads to Sales Team Flex

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Company Overview

K-Flex—a leading manufacturer of insulation products that deliver quality performance around the world—provides its wide range of customers within the plumbing, marine, HVAC/R, commercial/industrial, oil and gas, acoustic, and OEM markets with solutions that are sustainable, innovative, and long-lasting. K-Flex is a member of the IK Insulation Group, which distributes products to 43 countries, including 14 production facilities. Through its K-Flex PACT, the company commits to the core values of being passionate, accountable, committed, and trustworthy.

Problem

No clear view to key data points needed to move sales initiatives

K-Flex needed a centralized and accessible way to view its sales, production, and backorder data, including crucial KPIs for sales that drive business decisions with its customers. In order to do any analysis, K-Flex was pulling reports manually from its SQL server to view gross sales; sales compared to their monthly budget; and customer, market, and sales representative details. Then they would spend hours manipulating reports in Excel to gain insights.

Business users needed access to a single source of truth when it came to data that was easy to use and navigate. They needed to see trends in their sales data across markets and regions so they could develop smart sales strategies. Without this insight, the sales team could not make quick data-driven decisions as to which customers to target and which markets to focus their time.

Solution

A single source of truth for everyone to access

K-Flex required a solution that would streamline and automate reporting and provide a single source of truth for its company data—most importantly, sales data. It needed to be easy to use and access, as well as foster collaboration. To help meet the challenge, Analytics8 did a full implementation of Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS. This cloud version of Qlik Sense is available through logging in via a web browser rather than living on-prem, which lead to improved accessibility.

The primary focus was to develop a sales application that could be used by K-Flex’s VP of sales and marketing as well as the entire sales team. To foster collaboration and usability, Analytics8 worked with the business users and implemented their feedback to tailor the apps to the reporting process they were building for their sales team. Additionally, Analytics8 referenced QlikView applications that were developed in the past to identify key metrics and potential visualizations for the apps to be developed.

To promote user adoption of the new applications, Analytics8 led virtual training and mentoring sessions to ensure the K-Flex team knew how to use the new sales app so they would get the most out of their investment. We ensured they knew how to navigate the various sheets, apply filters, change dimensions and measures, and export data.

Rolling out the Qlik Sense apps to our sales force has given them all of the data and visual tools they need to quickly and accurately identify trends within their markets that can help them drive positive results. By now quickly having access to easy-to-interpret data prior to customer meetings, the biggest savings has been reducing the number of touchpoints and meetings needed to close deals.
Matt Hair, VP of Sales & Marketing at K-Flex, USA

Results

Quick view snapshots lead to more closed deals

The K-Flex sales team is now able to view a full snapshot of customer activity to prepare them for sales calls and meetings with customers. With quick views into customer details and the locations where sales were occurring, K-Flex sales representatives could make more intentional sales plans and ultimately increase their revenue stream.

The Qlik Sense solution has led to significant time savings and increased productivity. The sales team saves on average 1 – 2 hours per week by being able to quickly and accurately identify trends, and an additional 3+ hours per week by reducing the number of touchpoints and meetings they need to schedule to close deals. Other benefits of the solution include the ability to:

  • View customer history including their sales, which states/cities customers are located in,
    and the product group they belong to prior to meetings with a customer.
  • Decide which customers are most likely to make future purchases based on their history
    with K-Flex.
  • Filter their data quickly by several different factors including market, region, salesperson
    associated, and manufacturing rep.
  • View their customers and markets in all of the sales metrics in one view.
  • Understand the regions that are more likely to turn freight into active sales and the
    products that are responsible for this.
  • Have a holistic view of cost breakdown for the products they sell (including the material
    cost, packing cost, and overhead cost).
  • Act on the products with the highest amount of freight that is backordered and assist
    with making informed ordering decisions.

With access to this information, K-Flex is ready to close deals quickly and more efficiently than ever before.

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