Nippon Express South Asia and Oceania (NX SAO), part of Japan’s global logistics solution provider Nippon Express Group, has signed an agreement with Salesforce to expand its use of the vendor's cloud services in Asia Pacific region.
Nippon Express Holdings, which has operations in 49 countries, employs 72,000 globally.
It has a diverse logistics portfolio including air freight, ocean freight, ground freight, contract logistics, heavy haulage and construction, and security-related logistics.
NX SAO will use Salesforce's sales cloud platform in 15 countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, India, Singapore and Vietnam.
The company's executive officer and managing director, Tanaka Hiroyuki, said the agreement with Salesforce was part of the company’s “geo-diversification strategy”.
NX SAO sought to standardise its global sales processes and collaborate across teams more seamlessly to ensure continued growth and competitive advantage, Hiroyuki said.
Prior to using Salesforce, NX SAO managed its customer relationships at the individual country level and this, Hiroyuki said, added complexity across its sales and marketing teams.
With the implementation of Salesforce sales cloud, employees will now be able to manage customers under a single platform and leverage data insights, he said
Hiroyuki said this would provide a “single source of truth to drive all customer interactions”, including lead generation, acquisition and nurturing of new customers, as well as maintaining visibility on their pipeline and opportunities.
“Global visibility helps us capture commercial intelligence and enhance customers’ experience,” Hiroyuki added.
NX SAO’s VP and regional sales chief executive, Jeffery Foote, said the centralised digital platform would enable the company’s sales team to “significantly accelerate new business development” by following a standardised sales process.
“In addition, the customer intelligence consolidated in one platform will help streamline efforts on building and enhancing products that will be critical to our customers’ future success,” Foote said.
Salesforce Singapore’s senior VP and general manager, Cecily Ng said the pandemic and global environment have “certainly put a strain on the logistics industry”.
“Despite the headwinds, we are heartened to see companies continue to seek innovation and find new ways to remain competitive… Salesforce is honoured to support NX SAO in its digital transformation journey and help it stay competitive in this changing world,” Ng said.