Oracle Cloud helps Panasonic Toughbooks dominate

The Toughbook brand of Panasonic Europe’s Mobile Solutions division dominates Europe’s rugged notebook and tablet sectors. But cheaper consumer-grade alternatives outfitted with aftermarket ruggedized accessories continue to pose a threat to that leadership position, As Panasonic Business looked to defend and expand its customer base, it knew it needed to do more than launch awareness campaigns. What it needed was a more integrated approach to marketing, sales, and customer service.

Panasonic Business chose the Oracle CX suite of marketing, sales, and customer service applications to consolidate its four fragmented CRM systems (including one from Salesforce.com) onto one easily accessible platform. Global scalability and flexibility also influenced the company’s decision, with its platform spanning 12 different languages across eight countries.

Using lead-scoring tools and prospect heat maps in its Oracle Eloqua Marketing Automation marketing tool, Panasonic Business can look at the “greenfield” share of its sales pipeline and invite those prospects to industry-specific webinars and, as the relationship develops or the lead converts into a paying customer, schedule a product demo or attach a service bundle to a new product offer. “It’s become very easy to know who to target, what to offer them, and when to reach out,” says CMO Jan Kaempfer.

Since integrating Oracle Eloqua with Oracle Sales, Panasonic’s marketing and sales teams can share the same customer profiles, sales forecasts, and purchase orders. “I can now see exactly how much pipeline we created, how much pipeline we converted to wins, and what the total value of those sales were,” says Kaempfer, who notes that the integrated platform has helped lift the percentage of “marketing-assisted” sales by 50%.

Integrating Oracle Eloqua and Oracle Service lets company executives see exactly how the pipeline is being supported, where money is being spent, and what it’s doing to convert greenfield accounts while growing the existing base. In the past, 60% of Panasonic’s rugged-device sales came from existing customers, the other 40% from new accounts. Today, it’s roughly the reverse.

And with the addition of Oracle Service to the platform, sales reps can now see which customers have reported excessive damages to their devices or have warranties that are ready to expire.