Streamlining Sales and Marketing at Adama Hungary Ltd. with Salesforce

A special, development-driven project began in 2015 between Adama Hungary Zrt. and Attention. Large buttons, simple and functional design – Szabolcs Munkácsi, the company’s marketing manager, discussed the details.

“We are a multinational company dealing with pesticide manufacturing and trade. We are present globally, ranked 6th worldwide, and 4th in Hungary among manufacturers.”

“When selecting a CRM system, two factors guided us. Firstly, there was pressure from the parent company towards Salesforce: this system was chosen to support our sales processes. Secondly, we have long had the need for a unified system to help the sales team. It would allow us to systematize experiences from the regional managers and their promoter colleagues, as well as forecast sales to our partners.

The goal was to provide support for fieldwork in a way that allows employees to analyze their own work (including past years’ data, purchases, and visits), and to create various reports and statistics that help sales. Essentially, we needed a way to track how each year progresses, continuously monitor results, and intervene in the system if things were heading in the wrong direction.”

Before and After Salesforce

“We started with Excel spreadsheets, and faced all the possible problems of sending Excel-based files. When using a single file, we found that the ‘time management’ and motivation to fill it out were inconsistent: some employees filled it out and sent it back immediately, while others didn’t even do so the following week. But we still couldn’t keep information up to date when everyone worked in separate files, and one person had to aggregate them at the end. The next step was a program called Act, but this didn’t represent a breakthrough either: it was slightly more organized than Excel, but equally complicated and difficult to use, which is not ideal when managing a registration system.

Now, we have a centralized system that everyone can access whenever they want. It’s become self-motivating; employees update information every 2-3 days, but we no longer have to wait for each other. Everyone knows when we need basic data for our analysis, and those who haven’t uploaded the necessary data are at a disadvantage, because in Salesforce, it will appear as if they ‘haven’t met expectations.’ This is a pretty strong motivator!”

Specific Expectations

“The primary goal of Salesforce in our company is to help our regional managers effectively manage their promoters and relationships with partners. In our regional sales system, we work with two-county regions, each led by a regional manager and their managed promoters. The system needed to serve their specific needs. Since the colleagues working with us are usually agricultural-oriented professionals, not programmers, we decided to use Salesforce’s engine but with a custom-built, simplified interface. We wanted it to have as few buttons as possible for easier use.”

The Process

“We started working with Attention in 2015, and by that year, we had a basic structure in place: we outlined the data and structure we wanted in the system, and they added their logical and visual advice on how to build it. The test year was 2016, during which we ironed out the initial issues. By early 2017, we were using the system in real life:

We supported the sales work with analytics. Step by step, the first and most important task was inputting partner data and organizing it for future use. For example, we tracked the regional colleagues’ visits (frequency and efficiency). We also forecasted sales, tracked progress against our plan during the year, and at year-end, we extracted and analyzed actual data, such as sales, to evaluate the performance of our sales team.”

The System

“We applied a custom skin to Salesforce, meaning Attention developed a unique interface based on our plans that is visually appealing but extremely simplified for daily tasks: after logging in, there are two buttons—one for sales, the other for marketing. The system is divided into these two sections. After progressing, we see a 2-3 button menu.

The marketing section contains essential market-related information (e.g., market segment sizes, products used, and their significance). In the sales section, the top two features are visits and forecasts. Regional colleagues log their discussions with partners, recording experiences in the system. They essentially create reports, choosing from five types of visits available in the system. These visits can be introductions (typically the first contact), professional discussions (when talking about product features and why the partner should choose it), trials (setting up a test with the partner), forecasts (when a partner commits to a product), or complaint handling.

As I mentioned earlier, at Adama, all data is tied to partners, and the most important task of Salesforce is to support the regional managers’ work. It helps them manage their teams, monitor visits, and track progress based on forecasts to see how the plan is progressing. For upper management, although we can see everyone’s data, the forecast is the key metric. From it, we can tell how we are doing compared to the plan for each product. Based on this, we decide whether we need to adjust the sales strategy or if everything can proceed as planned. At the end of the year, we perform more thorough evaluations based on the aggregated data.”

Challenges

“Actually, it’s an ongoing challenge because Salesforce, like any CRM system, wasn’t designed for agricultural use. There are industry-specific needs that Salesforce didn’t anticipate. CRM systems generally work with basic templates, and their shortcomings quickly become evident in simple data, such as planting area details. For example, when we input planting data for winter wheat in the fall (who planted what and on which area), it won’t be actual field data for that year since harvesting only happens the following summer. This means that for a given partner and crop, two area data entries exist in a year. However, this isn’t the case for all crops—sunflowers and corn are planted in spring and harvested in fall, so only one area data entry is needed for those crops. Harmonizing these processes in Salesforce is far from simple and requires ongoing developer support.”

Lessons Learned

“I think there are two options: either you develop a completely custom system from scratch, or you invest in something like Salesforce, which has about 70-75% of the capabilities you need out of the box, and then you build on it. We at Adama chose the latter, and we believe the system is up-to-date and works well. I can’t think of anything we should have done differently. It requires continuous development to make it user-friendly across computers, mobiles, or tablets. It’s essential that employees enjoy using it. Let’s face it, filling out such a system is hard admin work, which isn’t the most favored task. But if we improve the user experience with small, seemingly trivial things, we can ensure that employees are still willing to use the system, even when it’s not their favorite task.

The key is to maintain constant contact between the customer and the development company. That’s how the development process worked with Attention, and now, we meet monthly to discuss new directions. We set new goals, which we often change within two days due to daily issues. But one thing is certain—working with us is never boring. We keep coming up with new ideas, mainly focused on visual tools that aid in daily work. We discuss ideas with regional managers, then consult with Attention, who takes it from there and makes it happen. Right now, for example, we are working on an update that will show users’ sales performance against the plan graphically upon logging in.”