Detecting sales opportunities with AI forecasting

Companies and organisations looking for golden relevant data are increasingly relying on AI to mine them. This is also the case at Coeman Packaging, a distributor of packaging materials and machines from Waregem. With more than 3,000 B2B customers, the company has a turnover of some 35 million euros. "We were already looking for a way to better exploit our sales opportunities. Eventually, we came across Trendskout's AI for sales forecasting and maximising our sales", says Managing Director Luc Vanderbeke.

Optimize sales time

Coeman Packaging has a long track record and was already pioneering with a substantial IT investment in the 1980s. Over the years, this has led to highly developed ERP and CRM packages in the company, which contain a wealth of data. The extraction of all that data has been a known bottleneck all along. “A lot is happening in our market,” explains Vanderbeke. “Not only our customers and competitors are evolving, but our products as well. In addition, our sales team spends too much time on administrative tasks, while we prefer them to focus as much as possible on pure sales. We were therefore looking for ways to move forward and get added value from our data, in order to be able to do sales more effectively. So we soon arrived at Trendskout and its broad AI applications. ”

“In a turbulent corona year, Trendskout has helped to ensure that we can present the same strong figures today as last year.”

Luc Vanderbeke - Director Coeman Packaging

Detecting sales opportunities

The company is now using Trendskout AI for its forecasting to also detect less visible sales opportunities. Behind the scenes it is mainly about the Sales Opportunity Detection that is standard ingrained in the Trendskout AI. That model looks for patterns in decades of historical sales and customer data from Coeman Packaging. The AI then analyzes it to make accurate predictions. In concrete terms, the AI software automatically prepares a monthly forecasting report that indicates which customers may need a new order.

In practice, the algorithm’s suggestions are more than 80% accurate, which really complements the gut feeling and routines of the experienced sales team. Hard data therefore supports the sales profession, which is naturally driven by human relationships.

Simple technical setup

The implementation of the algorithm happened very quickly – a requirement for the Coeman Packaging team. The data from the existing ERP and CRM was easily connected to Trendskout via the standard API, without the need for an expensive preliminary process. This allowed the AI algorithm to immediately start unlocking data for quick results. New links with future software or other external data sources are also possible.

Unburdening customers

“The great thing about Trendskout for us is that you don’t have to be a computer specialist to discover new sales opportunities,” says Vanderbeke. “The Trendskout AI provides immediate added value for our salespeople. Our customers notice that they receive extra attention and appreciate the unburdening. ” The AI forecasting model detects customer needs even before they even realize it.

Continuous improvement

“In a turbulent corona year, Trendskout has helped to ensure that we can present the same strong figures today as last year,” concludes Vanderbeke. The results of the AI forecasting model are evaluated monthly and adjusted where necessary to further improve accuracy and give the sales team the best chances of new deals.

Interested in apply Sales Forecasting with AI? We are happy to help. Contact us.

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