Please give an overview of the digitisation initiatives at BPCL and what have been the benefits?
We launched “Project Anubhav” with an objective of delivering a consistent, superior and unified experience across multiple touchpoints, to our channel partners, as well as our vast retail and commercial customer base of over 90 million individuals. We’re looking to adopt key technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IOT) and implementation of technology platforms that will cut across business units giving teams at BPCL, a unified view of the customers, improve processes as well as enhance employee safety.
We are leveraging Salesforce to support our aggressive digital transformation strategy. We have deployed Consumer Goods Cloud, Salesforce Sales Cloud and Service Cloud along with business analytics from Tableau CRM, to address an evolving business and consumer environment and deliver a ‘One BPCL’ digital experience.
At BPCL, continuous innovation has always been fundamental to all our operations. We believe that digitalization opens up the possibility of collaborative innovation, allowing our teams to collaborate better with dealer, distributor networks as well as their customers.
Please elaborate on Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud and approximate license count.
At BPCL, we leverage Salesforce to support our aggressive digital transformation strategy. We have deployed Salesforce Sales Cloud (Consumer Goods) and Service Cloud along with business analytics from Tableau CRM, to address an evolving business and consumer environment to deliver a ‘One BPCL’ digital experience.
Internally, the sales platform has been branded as “SalesBuddy” because it acts as a true partner to sales teams, giving them all the data and tools they need to succeed. Through Sales Cloud, sales officers can capture leads, monitor opportunity pipelines, and close deals faster. In an instant, they can pull up the complete details of any customer to understand their expectations and engage with them more meaningfully.
Our cross selling and upselling capabilities are also improving as a result of complete customer visibility. For instance, an LPG sales officer can easily identify a potential opportunity in the industrial segment. Or, a fuel station customer can be tagged as a lead for the lubricants business. This way, everyone works towards optimising the company’s share of wallet.
With Service Cloud, customer queries and complaints from various channels like WhatsApp, emails, and phone calls will be swiftly consolidated to help service agents accelerate case resolution. Our Sales reps also leverage Salesforce Field Service to help dealers and distributors grow their revenue and deliver high-quality customer experiences.
On the whole, Salesforce has enabled increased collaboration between our sales and service functions, providing a single view of our customers to deliver an unmatched and hyper-personalized experience.
Please elaborate on the Tableau analytics solution and broadly how will the Salesforce – Tableau combine help BPCL’s ecosystem of employees, customers, dealers etc?
Tableau CRM offers BPCL rich intelligence to strengthen and optimise sales performance, as well as to track customer feedback and sentiment. Timely insights are helping us make smarter and more well-informed decisions to stay on top of customer expectations.
Today, Salesforce is being used by 2,000+ BPCL employees. More users will be added as the platform continues to be rolled out. The incredible pace at which Salesforce has been deployed is a testament to the strength of the platform. The Salesforce solution adequately addresses the needs and complexities of our business.
Will this solution suite be used across all BPCL locations including overseas? Can all classes of employees access the solution suite?
While BPCL has a global presence, our core market is India. Salesforce is currently used by our entire Sales and Marketing teams across India. From the contractual field force to the Leadership teams, a vast spectrum of BPCL can access Salesforce.
What is the overall objective of deploying this solution and what is the comparative advantage that it provides when compared to how things were handled before?
Before partnering with Salesforce, we relied on multiple homegrown systems to serve customers. Since each system was custom-coded for a specific purpose, it couldn’t be replicated or scaled up across business units to provide a consolidated customer view. As a result, each business unit communicated with customers in silos, fracturing the customer experience.
Meanwhile, management teams didn’t have enough insights on which customers were using which services. For instance, the teams did not know how many LPG customers were visiting BPCL’s fuel stations or using its industrial and commercial products. Without this data, they couldn’t determine whether the company was earning its real share of the customer’s wallet.
To solve these challenges, we needed a technology platform that would cut across business units, giving teams a unified view of the customer, while also giving customers a consistent experience across touchpoints. Salesforce solutions could be implemented seamlessly even in a business as complex as BPCL’s business. Today, Salesforce is making BPCL’s sales teams stronger and more resilient, while transforming the way the company manages its customers, leads, opportunities, and channel partners.
What is the kind of training that you have imparted to this objective?
Collaboration is a key value at BPCL. We have put in cumulatively more than 4000 hours of training to enable the field to effectively utilize the platform and get conversant with it. A team of champions from within the businesses was identified and enabled through their involvement in development and testing also. These champions further connected with local level teams and conducted elaborate training for the last mile field force ensuring 100% hands-on coverage.
When was the implementation completed?
We went live with Salesforce in March 2021 and have been on a continuous improvement path based on our learnings from usage and trend analysis, the inputs from the end users and changing business dynamics.
Please discuss the overall benefits and challenges in implementation
Implementation of Salesforce is helping BPCL strengthen our sales and customer experiences. While Sales Cloud allows our sales officers to capture leads, monitor pipelines, and close deals faster; features like planogram checks and SOP surveys ensure that every dealer outlet is well-organized, well-equipped, and streamlined. In addition, geo-fencing tools allow sales managers to track and optimize field sales visits.
Salesforce is also helping the team engage with channel partners more effectively. Any issues or concerns they have can be captured, tracked, and resolved on the platform. Overall, the insights available on Salesforce are helping us have much more meaningful conversations with partners, while also empowering them to succeed.
Deloitte India, a Salesforce partner, was also instrumental in the collaboration. Working with BPCL, they designed and oversaw the deployment of Salesforce and other processes in alignment with the ‘One BPCL’ vision.