Creating Agility and Unlocking First-Party Data Insights

BiC is a French manufacturing corporation based in Clichy best known for making disposable consumer products such as lighters, razors and pens. It was founded in 1945 by Marcel Bich. Over more than 75 years, BIC grew from humble beginnings to the simply iconic brand they are today. Passionate about bringing simplicity and joy to people all over the world, BIC continues to reimagine everyday essentials, designing products that are part of every heart and home.

BIC was faced with integration problems within their digital platform and needed a single source for all of their commerce needs.

There were four different offerings to the BIC platform that needed updating, each with their own purpose and functionality: Sales Routine, Sales Orders, Business Development Funds and Trade Discount. While each program existed for a slightly different reason and, therefore, required slightly different functionality, the way they existed before left no room for proper integration. The sales portals and solutions didn’t communicate and share information properly which led to problems at different parts of the order and fulfillment process.

By migrating to Salesforce, we knew we were giving BIC the opportunity to keep the functionality of each of their offerings while creating a more unified and integrated digital stack that could handle all the different orders and BIC’s global customer base.

With the platform, BIC's sales teams get more agility and productivity. Sales Cloud consolidates all information to provide sales teams with a complete view of the customer, helping to align complex deals with customer needs. The single source of truth that Sales Cloud creates for sales data is also crucial for smoothing out the order, logistics and fulfillment process which experienced certain hardships within BIC’s previous digital setup.

The new Sales Cloud module, using native and customs objects, customized pages, custom settings, workflows and process builder, with robust approval processes. The agility this creates allows sales executives to focus more on their relationship with the customer, creating a system in which they can more accurately and more quickly respond to customer requests, leading directly to happier customers.

With the implementation, BIC achieved a 90% increase in order entry speed time between the seller registering the order in the system and it being invoiced, resulting in a drop from 24 working hours to just two hours. The number of additional sales grew by more than 10% and the cost of freight dropped due to better planning and use of logistical resources, which generated savings of 25%. Visits to customers' stores grew by 100%, ensuring that they always have products on the shelves, favoring the final consumer's purchase.

The Salesforce platform also creates centralized customer data through dashboards, providing BIC with new data intelligence that will surely be crucial in new marketing efforts and sales initiatives moving forward. BIC has unlocked the importance of first-party data allowing them to reap the benefits of it in the future.