The Konica Minolta Security Services team sought to upgrade its sales process with a digital tool to gather site requirements and create system designs. Using the mobile, collaborative capabilities of System Surveyor, the team now has a streamlined sales methodology and design process that elevates the customer experience when purchasing Konica Minolta security solutions and MOBOTIX cameras.
“Every customer I present to says we’re ten times beyond anything they’ve seen before. The professionalism we convey using System Surveyor demonstrates that Konica Minolta is a serious regional and national player in security system design services”, Konica Minolta Regional Sales Manager.
About Konica Minolta
Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. is reshaping and revolutionizing the Workplace of the Future™ with its expansive smart office product portfolio from IT Services (All Covered), ECM, Managed Print Services and industrial and commercial print solutions. Konica Minolta has been recognized as the #1 Brand for Customer Loyalty in the MFP Office Copier Market by Brand Keys for twelve consecutive years, and is proud to be ranked on the Forbes 2017 America’s Best Employers list. The World Technology Awards recently named the company a finalist in the IT Software category. Konica Minolta, Inc. has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for eight consecutive years. It partners with its clients to give shape to ideas and work to bring value to our society. For more information, please visit us online and follow Konica Minolta on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter.
CHALLENGE: Paper and Pencil Designs for 21st Century Security Systems
Organizations engage the Konica Minolta Security Services team when they need to upgrade a security system or outfit a new facility. For example, Security Services creates a site design that shows customers where best to place the company’s MOBOTIX video surveillance cameras. This begins during the sales process.
Traditionally, system design professionals across the globe have created site surveys using pencil and paper – and most still do. Salespeople walk around with the customer taking notes on paper and photos on a phone or camera. Cobbling all this together can be a tedious, error-prone process.
System re-designs, installation errors, and no cost change orders occur often in the industry. Konica Minolta used this conventional way of doing site surveys. Many of its salespeople did not have experience in security or engineering, making the manual approach even more difficult. A camera might get installed in the wrong spot, for instance, due to missing or incorrect information.
The sales team also had no consistent way of doing site surveys. Everyone was gathering requirements differently, hindering collaboration and efficiency. If a prospect called back months later to hire the company for a project, often the paper design was hard to find or difficult for someone new to decipher. Isolated spreadsheets and databases as well as outdated PDFs also hampered the process.
In addition, because the paper-and-pencil method requires someone to be on site to collect the requirements, the company could not afford to fly a salesperson to each prospect’s location. They were unable to bid on every project lead that came through the door.
The Security Services team wanted a modern, digital solution to streamline their sales methodology. Konica Minolta’s construction business for new builds uses AutoCAD and other tools, but Security Services sought a tool that was simpler to use. A lack of offerings kept them glued to pencil and paper.
SOLUTION: System Surveyor - a Digital Map for IoT
The Security Services team finally found a solution in the System Surveyor intelligent system design platform. This mobile, cloudbased tool enables them to gather all system requirements and IoT assets in a single place. Built by system professionals, the software and app solve the problems associated with rudimentary site survey methods, a painstaking system design process, and outdated system records.
System Surveyor is now the team’s main design platform, providing an interactive drag-and-drop interface to place system components on a “living” digital floor plan. The team can upload or create floor plans, take and annotate photos, develop system layouts, specify required products such as cameras, and more.
System Surveyor also helps the Security Services team collaborate and share design plans with end customers, their Konica Minolta colleagues, system integrators, and other vendors and subcontractors. Whether in the field or the office, everyone can work together in one system of record throughout the entire lifecycle of a space – from requirement collection, bidding, and design to product selection, deployment and maintenance.
“System Surveyor separates us from the competition for sure. I know the technology, and the customer knows their facilities and property, so it’s a true collaboration. We design a security system that we can all take pride in. They become part of the family.”
Konica Minolta Regional Sales Manager
RESULTS: Professionalism and Design Amplified
System Surveyor has helped the Security Services team streamline and unify their sales process. The highly visual, collaborative platform engages prospects and customers earlier in the sales cycle to accelerate proposal development and engineering planning. Now, instead of having to travel to every prospect’s site, salespeople can upload a floor plan or Google Earth snapshot to begin the system design.
More Sophisticated Sales Pitches to More Prospects
The Western Regional Sales Manager for Konica Minolta says he uses these materials to start a personalized site plan in System Surveyor and then conducts a Webinar with the prospective customer: “Every customer I present to says we’re ten times beyond anything they’ve seen before. The professionalism we convey using System Surveyor demonstrates that Konica Minolta is a serious regional and national player in security system design services.” The Webinar is a good qualifier for customer leads, according to the Regional Sales Manager. It not only saves travel time and costs but also lets him pitch to more prospects. If a customer wants to move forward, it speeds up the design process.
“Every customer I present to says we’re ten times beyond anything they’ve seen before. The professionalism we convey using System Surveyor demonstrates that Konica Minolta is a serious regional and national player in security system design services.”
Konica Minolta Regional Sales Manager
Visual Collaboration Boosts Customer Buy-in
With the site survey already started on an iPad or Android-based tablet, the salesperson can visit the customer site and collaborate visually on the design plan. They can conduct a more thorough assessment and develop consensus on requirements. This gives the customer more ownership of and confidence in the project, which could translate into a higher sales win rate for Konica Minolta.
While on site, System Surveyor enables a salesperson to depict exact placement of cameras and field of view for the customer. Integrated photo capture includes annotation tools and automatic association to a device, providing a complete picture of the local environment. The salesperson can even generate a bill of materials with the Konica Minolta part numbers already built into the tool.
“System Surveyor separates us from the competition for sure. I know the technology, and the customer knows their facilities and property, so it’s a true collaboration. We design a security system that we can all take pride in. They become part of the family.”
Improving Service While Saving Time and Money
According to the Konica Minolta Regional Sales Manager, a detailed, digital system design can also save the system integrator a trip to the site: “System Surveyor allows me to gather everything I need in one visit, finalize it with the customer, and share it with the integrator. If I do enough work and take good pictures and notes, then the integrator doesn’t even have to show up before installation.”
Once the integrator begins the installation using System Surveyor, the Regonal Sales Manager said it works flawlessly. By using the tool to collaborate across organizational boundaries, the extended team can deliver better, faster results. Operating from one design plan, everyone is on the same digital page. In addition, System Surveyor provides a centralized repository of data that allows the team to be more efficient. They now have an integrated, simplified process for sign-offs to the end user and hand-offs between departments and project stakeholders in other organizations.
The Konica Minolta Regional Sales Manager mentioned that a prospect he had presented to came back one year later to begin the project. Instead of scrounging for the paper design or an outdated PDF, he was able to pull up their initial digital design in System Surveyor. This sped up the proposal, design and project installation. “It creates the length of usage to never let the data expire,” he said. “System Surveyor has definitely made me more organized and my job easier.”
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Customer
Konica Minolta -
Industry
Appliances, Electrical and Electronics Manufacturing -
Headquarters
Tokyo
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