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Case Study

General Mills Uses Datassential Sales Intelligence to Empower 200+ Field Salespeople

The North America Foodservice (NAF) division at General Mills has a focus that spans multiple segments, from K-12 to hospitals, pizzerias and hotels.

With so much ground to cover, quality data is integral. The business development team relies on sound operator and market data to surface untapped growth opportunities across industries and product types while the field sales team relies on the data and intelligence to develop more effective selling strategies.

THE CHALLENGE

When Jonathan Guyer, a 15-year General Mills veteran, took on a data governance role on the NAF sales team in 2018, he was shocked at how much time was being spent simply cleansing and integrating the NAF team’s data. In fact, with varying file configurations, data attributes, and transfer schedules across all the sources, so much time was going into data management that there were not enough resources to focus on actually extracting value from the data.

Need to ensure coverage across all target markets

Too much time being spent simply cleansing and integrating data

Not enough resources left over to focus on actually extracting value from the data

THE SWITCH

Jonathan knew that there had to be a better solution and began researching solutions to address the inefficiency caused by receiving data from multiple sources. He quickly narrowed down his choices to Datassential’s SALES INTELLIGENCE platform, and two other competitive products. In the end, Datassential was the clear winner and Jonathan proceeded to replace the cobbled-together data sources with SALES INTELLIGENCE, which became the team’s single source of truth.

Consolidated from 7 industry-specific vendors to Datassential’s SALES INTELLIGENCE platform

Began organizing all operator data using Datassential’s IDs and categorizations

Appreciated the transparent pricing model and easy-to-use web interface

THE IMPACT

Today, the NAF team organizes all its operator data in Salesforce using Datassential SALES INTELLIGENCE IDs and categorizations. There are a handful of users at the corporate level and over 200 field salespeople who regularly rely on Datassential’s menu and operator insights to sell more effectively and close new business. Jonathan, who is also responsible for sales training, said he also loves Datassential’s product because anyone can learn to use it quickly. As a result, engagement is high among the sales team, further increasing ROI.

Time previously spent on cleansing was reallocated to higher value products that made the data more actionable

200+ field salespeople at NAF now rely on Datassential’s SALES INTELLIGENCE platform to sell more effectively and close new business

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