Challenge #1

No visibility in usage of marketing assets during sales cycle.

Operating in 60+ countries around the globe, Saint-Gobain’s local strategies need to be managed by many different business units.

Each of these business units has its own sales and marketing organization that needs to work closely with the central marketing team to enforce strict branding guidelines, create content, provide sales training, and implement sales and marketing technologies.

Due to this complicated structure, Saint-Gobain’s central marketing team found it nearly impossible to track down and update content, or understand how it was being used in the sales process.

Challenge #2

Struggling to find relevant content.

Each of Saint-Gobain’s business units had to send sales assets to their teams separately. These assets lived on multiple systems, such as file servers, Dropbox and Google Drive. The result: the sales team found it very difficult to locate the content they needed and didn’t know if they were using the most recent or relevant assets.

“Reps would be using out-of-date content without anyone being the wiser,” said Jacqueline Kersey, CRM Faciliator at British Gypsum, Saint-Gobain.

Challenge #3

Dealing with unreliable internet and unsatisfactory user experience.

A few years ago, Saint-Gobain made the decision to equip all of its sales teams with tablets. But before Showpad, the company relied on a homegrown mobile application.

The tool wasn’t great, mainly because it was difficult to use and navigate. Users had to have a reliable internet connection to access any materials, a hard thing to guarantee when you have to be out in the field. They also needed to go through a lengthy authentication process to view assets on their device. And there was no easy way for a sales rep to share content they had just presented to a customer.

“If you’re showing a prospect a brochure or video, you should be able to share it with them immediately, and shouldn’t need to go to the office to do so,” said Cyril Denonain, Global Communications & Digital Manager at Gypsum & Ceilings Activity, Saint-Gobain.

When new hires join Saint-Gobain’s sales organization, they are expected to digest a great deal of company and product information and become subject matter experts in their space.

“For example, when a salesperson is going to address a hotel chain,” explained Cyril, “they need to know what matters for that sector, like a sound insulation in bedrooms or a good speech intelligibility in conference rooms. This level of industry knowledge takes time, but the guided selling features in Showpad help us onboard and get sales reps up to speed faster.”

“When a newcomer is meeting with a client and isn’t familiar with one of our solutions, we can use Showpad to display a list of suggestions on how to proceed,” he continued. “Showpad can also direct more seasoned salespeople towards cross-selling and upselling opportunities that they may not be aware of.”

With Showpad, Saint-Gobain found a solution that truly supports its complex organization structure. The company’s’ content can now be managed easily per business unit, country and product line. And the necessary restrictions can be given to both sales and marketing in different layers of the organization.

“This gave us the control we needed,” Cyril said. “It let us provide the right level of support to help our sales force prepare for customer visits.”

Showpad has also significantly reduced the amount of time Saint-Gobain’s central marketing team spends updating and maintaining sales content and provided a single location for their salespeople to find content.

“Showpad is a great product to work with,” Jacqueline added. “It’s so simple and user friendly. As an administrator, uploading and changing files couldn’t be easier.”

Now, marketing finally receives valuable insights in the content usage of both the internal teams and the customers.