Henkel Reduced Onboarding Time by up to 67%

With such a broad base of customers, Henkel uses a network of distributors to help sell its products. Distributors would bring forward sales opportunities, which the Henkel sales team would help close. However, this meant that the Henkel sales reps had little visibility over end customers and often relied on distributors to bring forward sales leads.

Henkel wanted a solution to help sales reps identify new opportunities, nurture existing relationships, and increase efficiency. Some of the major areas they wanted to address were:

1. Passive sales process

Henkel wanted to get customers in front of their field sales reps rather than distributors. They were relying on distributors for their big deals and wanted to be able to drive sales and increase efficiency on the road.

2. Admin eating into sales time

In addition to giving the sales reps more control over prospecting, Henkel wanted to lower the amount of time spent on administration. The goal was to streamline in-office planning time so sales reps could spend more time visiting clients and closing new business.

3. Lack of market visibility

Henkel's marketing team needed to understand the end customers and their location when rolling out a new product or launching in a new market.

1. 30% more time selling

Henkel has seen an increase in productivity and opportunities by empowering sales reps to nurture accounts and effectively prospect for new business. eSpatial is also helping to cut down on office planning time for sales reps. Together with other tools, eSpatial is helping Henkel sales reps spend 30% less time in the office.

"I like to use eSpatial to develop a plan of attack. It's much better than using a spreadsheet, gives me more time to prospect," said one senior sales representative.

2. 67% faster sales rep onboarding

When a new sales rep starts at Henkel, one of the first priorities for the sales manager is to give them access to eSpatial. Since Henkel has a wide product range, getting a new sales rep settled in a territory can take some time. With eSpatial, Henkel can now help new reps by providing easy-to-use maps showing distributors, accounts and prospects, breaking them down into product categories. This has helped reduce onboarding time by up to 67%.

"eSpatial is of serious value to newer sales reps as they attempt to navigate successfully through a new territory. It also builds mind-share with distribution about new account potential and action steps to pursue jointly to increase sales," said a senior sales representative with 30 years of experience at Henkel. "For tenured reps, it serves as a useful background check in areas where you may not be aware of new or existing account potential."

3. Increased new product adoption

By providing sales reps with targeted maps for new product launches, Henkel has been able to speed up the time to market. As of 2018, all new Henkel product or market launches include creating a targeted map with eSpatial.

As part of their 2020 strategic priorities, Henkel aims to become more agile and digital. Adopting eSpatial as one of their core tools is helping Henkel to reach these goals, by cutting down on sales planning time, increasing efficiency and becoming more targeted.