Nov 12
Turning Sales Meetings into Action Planning
Overview
CMC Xmedica is a content company that specializes in the medical and pharmaceutical industry. It runs three main businesses: medical planning and writing, delivered by medical writers with specialist medical knowledge; drug information and disease awareness content for healthcare professionals and patients; and hands-on digital adoption support that helps clients with their digital transformation.
The company had been building its own management analysis in spreadsheets, cut the way its business needed, while also using the group-wide core business system and BI reports from its parent company. Every time it wanted a different cut of the numbers, though, the aggregation had to be rebuilt, which limited how detailed and how fast the analysis could be. President Atsushi Tanaka built a management dashboard himself with Squadbase. Month-end aggregation now takes less than half the time it used to, and the sales meeting has shifted from a place to share numbers to a place to discuss next moves.
We spoke with Mr. Tanaka and with Daiki Matsumoto, General Manager of the Innovation & Sales Department, who followed this work by putting sales data to use, about how data use spread from the management dashboard to the sales floor.
The challenge: the gap between group-wide systems and the views the company needed
Before Squadbase, how did you work with your management numbers?
Mr. Tanaka
We use a core business system. Raw sales and cost data is consolidated there, and we can export it as CSV. Sales forecasts, on the other hand, are managed separately in our own tables and are not part of the core business system.
The items and analytical cuts we need for management decisions depend on our business and our situation. Standard reports help us see the big picture, but narrowing down or analyzing the numbers in more detail from our own angle required separate aggregation.
So we built our analysis reports in spreadsheet software, starting from data exported from the core business system. Our starting point was to create an environment where we could check the numbers in a way that fit our company, while still making use of the systems we already had.
What was difficult about running this in spreadsheets?
Mr. Tanaka
There were two main difficulties.
The first was that we could not freely analyze the numbers from the angle we wanted. Sales, cost, department, and sales rep data were each managed in separate tables and formats. If we wanted to see, for example, the profitability of a specific department or rep including cost, someone had to reconcile several data sets by hand. That work came up every time we changed the angle, which put a limit on how detailed and how frequent our analysis could be.
The second was the effort it took to keep the numbers accurate. To balance speed and accuracy in management decisions, we aggregated preliminary figures right after the month-end close, and then aggregated again with the final figures once the accounting work was done. We put accuracy first, but it took about eight business days before the numbers were final.
Finding Squadbase: "We tried it before overthinking it"
How did you first hear about Squadbase?
Mr. Tanaka
Our parent company told us about "an AI tool that lets you build dashboards just by giving instructions in natural language." I thought it was worth a try, so we started a trial.
How did you decide to adopt it?
Mr. Tanaka
The big thing was that we moved to try it before deliberating at length. With this much attention on generative AI, spending all our time on careful evaluation would have left us behind. The judgment was that using it first would be faster than thinking about it. I usually gather input from the front line before deciding, but on this one I think I moved a little differently from usual.
Did you compare it with other tools?
Mr. Tanaka
At first there was talk of introducing a BI tool. But it would have meant paying for everyone who used it, so the discussion never got serious. Squadbase only charges for the accounts that build dashboards, which made the barrier to adoption very different. It was also new and AI-native, so our feeling was simply to start using it.
The management dashboard built on Squadbase
Tell us about the dashboard you built.
Mr. Tanaka
We brought data from our core business system and sales forecasts into Squadbase and built a management dashboard. Squadbase normalizes data in different formats and loads it into a database, so we can work with the forecasts kept in our own tables and the sales and cost data exported from the core business system all at once. On top of that, we can freely change the cut, by department, by rep, by product, or by client, with natural language instructions. That has been a real help.
Before, changing the cut meant going through many steps in spreadsheets. We no longer need to, and that saves time.
Was anything difficult while building it?
Mr. Tanaka
The first thing we stumbled on was data definitions. The core business system holds amounts in yen, while the forecasts were managed in thousands of yen. Data used for sharing sometimes used yet another unit.
Sales item names did not match between the core business system and the spreadsheets either. Was it "sales excluding tax" or just "sales"? There were several items for the same sales figure, and they sometimes got mixed up. Because we had aggregated the numbers by hand before, we were able to notice these mismatches.
What is good about Squadbase is that once you specify the data definitions properly, it does not get them wrong again. The definitions can also be reused, so there is no need to redefine everything from scratch each month. Once they are defined, anyone who runs it gets the same result. Now all we do is load each month's data and ask in natural language for the analysis we want to see.
The results: less than half the work, and sales meetings that discuss
What changed after you adopted it?
Mr. Tanaka
First, the work around month-end dropped to less than half. Squadbase finishes the aggregation itself right away, so we no longer need the step of aggregating rough data once in advance. We simply load the final data when it arrives after the accounting work is done, and the time from close to final numbers has shrunk a lot.
How did the dashboard change your sales meetings?
Mr. Tanaka
Before, the meeting was centered on each sales rep aggregating their own numbers, bringing them in, and sharing them. Now that aggregation lives in the dashboard, so the work of each person preparing their own numbers has disappeared, and we can spend that time on discussion instead.
How we present the numbers changed too. Before, we showed spreadsheet aggregation results as they were, and with just numbers in a table it was sometimes hard to get across what mattered.
With Squadbase, we can shape the presentation to fit what we want to convey. And just by saying in everyday words "I want to see it on this axis," we can change the cut of the analysis on the spot.
As a result, the conversation became more concrete. Before, the discussion centered on overall sales trends and the activity of major clients. Now we look at the numbers by product and can say "medical writing is what is growing right now" or "this product is declining." We can also see which clients are driving sales up or down. Because we can bring out a detailed analysis on the spot every time, we understand the trend first and then start straight from discussing what to do.
How has the way the team works changed?
Mr. Tanaka
The way the team engages with numbers has changed. Before, the focus was on reviewing the figures each person brought and the overall totals. Now we look at the numbers through finer cuts, dig into the background and causes, and talk about what to do next. The meeting has moved beyond checking numbers to finding issues and working out concrete responses.
Apart from the monthly sales meeting, I also hold weekly strategy sessions with each sales rep. There we can start the conversation from the numbers, and the exchanges have become much more active. Each rep's awareness of the numbers has clearly risen too. Being able to step into management and strategy based on data is, I think, a good effect.
It has only been about six months since we adopted it, but we are already seeing results.
Spreading across the company: no specialist knowledge, in your own words
How has it spread inside the company?
Mr. Tanaka
I started using it first, and then recommended it to Matsumoto, telling him he should really try it.
Mr. Matsumoto, did you find it difficult to use?
Mr. Matsumoto
Not really. We also provide support services for traditional BI tools, and even from the outside, they give the impression of being hard to handle. Squadbase, by contrast, takes shape as you give it instructions in natural language. Being able to get all the way to analysis on your own instinct, without specialist knowledge, makes a big difference.
In fact, when I first started using it, it was so much fun to see what I wanted take shape one thing after another that I lost track of time. When I put "this is how I want to see it" into words, the dashboard comes together right there. I kept trying ideas as they came to me, checking the results, and adding more instructions. I think that shows how intuitive it is, that it made me want to do this much myself.
What's next: turning each rep's sales know-how into shared knowledge with an AI sales dashboard
Mr. Matsumoto, we hear you are working on putting sales data to use. How did that start?
Mr. Matsumoto
When I saw the management dashboard Tanaka built, I realized how flexibly you can build things with Squadbase. So I thought we should give shape to the dashboards the sales floor wished it had. Because it can go beyond visualization and, with AI built in, suggest the next move, I started by turning my own sales knowledge into data and built an "AI sales dashboard" with that as its logic. When you enter a client's requests and challenges, it returns the matching products and next actions, and you can also record and manage activity status and client reactions.
The background is the sheer number of products. We have 32 products at the subcategory level, and it takes time for younger reps to learn to pick the right ones from among them and propose them. We do maintain explanatory slides for each product, but how to move from preparation to the explanation in the meeting, closing, and follow-up has built up inside each person's experience. I wanted to keep that know-how as data, in a form the team can use.
How would you like to develop the AI sales dashboard from here?
Mr. Matsumoto
Right now, only my own sales knowledge is reflected in its logic. I want to bring together the knowledge of every member of the sales staff and turn it into shared knowledge. Then even younger reps will be able to respond to a client's challenges with the right products and actions, the way veterans do. Everyone selling in a way that is true to CMC Xmedica, and the whole team rising together. That is what we are aiming for.
Mr. Tanaka
In both management and sales, we are now able to back up, one by one with data, the judgments we have made based on the experience we have built up. Squadbase has a low learning cost, so I want to increase the number of people in the company who can look at data and act on their own.
