Food & Beverage

Changing through CRM: the Leone 1857 Experience

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A story spanning over 160 years

The quintessential sugar tablet. A story that began even before the unification of Italy. A format and packaging that are easily recognizable. A widespread distribution in over 5000 retail points, in the most prestigious Department Stores, in the best pastry shops and stores in Europe and around the world.

Growth projects: engaging and empowering the community

Leone 1857, the company behind the famous Pastiglie, has decided to embark on a Business Digital Transformation to become even more competitive in sectors such as Consumer Goods, Food & Grocery, and GDO, where levels of intermediation are many, and establishing a solid engagement with stakeholders, whether they are agents, retailers, or end consumers, is more delicate.

 

The parent company of Italy's best-selling pastille brand has thus begun a customer-centric innovation journey to engage and empower the community around the brand, with ambitious growth goals, while continuing to convey the traditional values of taste, elegance, craftsmanship, and Made in Italy.

The decision: managing data and relationships

In redesigning not only production processes but also marketing organization and sales systems, the need for a gradual digital evolution also emerged.

 

Given the complex articulation of the Sales network, the strategic role of data and relationship management was immediately apparent, and the desire to adopt a Customer Relationship Management platform that aligned with the evolution of Sales support processes and systems was clear from the outset, while simultaneously enhancing sales force, customer support, and B2B and B2C marketing activities.

 

With the strategic and operational support of Provider, the choice of CRM was oriented towards Salesforce, in order to integrate with existing structures and resources and allow both decision support with data analysis and effective communication with internal and external stakeholders.

A gradual and engaging process

The project had a one-year development horizon divided into three phases, prioritizing the Agents portal and integration with the ERP platform, proceeding in steps to allow for restricted training sessions and a progressive go-live with continuous tuning and monitoring of KPIs.

 

In subsequent phases, the focus shifted to implementing Marketing Cloud B2B, with the launch of the first institutional campaigns and consent collection, followed by Marketing Cloud B2C.

 

The challenges of change management

The most significant cultural change concerned the involvement of numerous agents, especially multi-mandated agents who operate with multiple companies and systems: the success depended on the willingness of individuals to adopt innovative tools and maximize the experience. It was necessary to activate the agent community, leading them to share the corporate innovation mission.

 

The engagement process was progressive and constant, including agents and employees and creating teams within the community, composed of selected collaborators such as Champions, internal SuperUsers, and the Provider team, in order to optimize change while gathering valuable field feedback.

The result is a new beginning

Personal involvement and incentivizing initiatives have allowed to give an acceleration to the new system with very satisfying results. Now the agent has at their disposal a single portal to interact with Leone 1857 and clients, tracking all activities, contacts, and opportunities. With the introduction of Salesforce, the sales system now sees 100% of active agents, 100% of records, and 100% of orders entered, allowing constant monitoring of leads, visits, and conversions as well as managing prospects, orders, and any issues. As a further step in engagement and change management, agents can now collect new consents and participate more actively - but with less effort - in corporate campaigns.

 

Thanks to digital innovation but above all to process innovation that has involved all actors in the new project, and with the comprehensive approach of Tinext, Leone 1857 now has new tools, data, and skills to expand its market and strengthen its business.

 

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