Henkel reduced onboarding time by up to 67%


Henkel is a global industrial and consumer goods company known for leading brands like Loctite, Persil, Fa, and more. With more than 140 years of success and 53,000 employees globally, Henkel continues to innovate and adopt new technologies to drive the business forward

Loctite glue

067%

faster sales rep onboarding

030%

increase in time spent selling


The challenge

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.

Sales ready leads near distributor
Sales leads that are color-coded by priority, red pins are the highest priority

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.

Denver customer location map
All customer locations in Denver

The solution

Henkel chose eSpatial to help them improve their sales and marketing processes in the following ways:

1. Increase field sales efficiency

eSpatial allows Henkel to create maps showing the location and information of end users. Having that new visibility allows sales reps to develop relationships, which can lead to additional opportunities proactively. This puts Henkel sales reps in the driver's seat and allows them to pursue sales without a distributor taking the lead more easily. However, it also allows them to keep track of their distributors and continue to build partnerships with them.

2. Streamline sales planning

Having a simple map view of customers and prospects makes it quicker and easier for Henkel's sales reps to plan their day. They can instantly see who they need to visit using filters, then identify other appointments they can schedule nearby.

eSpatial also helps sales reps once they're in the field. Each sales rep has access to their territory and list of customers directly from their mobile and iPad. If an appointment cancels, they can quickly see other clients, prospects, or distributors in the area that they can visit during that time.

3. Build in-depth market understanding

When Henkel's marketing team plans a new product or market launch, eSpatial is now a critical part of the equation. Rather than leaving sales reps to speculate about who might be interested in the new product, the marketing team provides them with a map of verified prospects. This targeted approach has helped to speed up product adoption and the establishment of new markets.

The result

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.