1. Case Overview
- Industry
- Food Production & Sales
- Solution Implemented
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM (Sales)
2. Background
Orange Bakery is a food production and sales company operating primarily in North America. Their sales department had been managing operations entirely through manual processes, which made information sharing difficult and left teams heavily reliant on individual knowledge and personal records. To address these inefficiencies and modernize their sales management, the company decided to implement a CRM solution.
SYSCOM's relationship with Orange Bakery began in 2024, when they were introduced by their group company, Rheon U.S.A., whose IT support has been handled by SYSCOM for many years. Since then, we have supported Orange Bakery with IT infrastructure and security setup and maintenance. Most recently, we supported a core system overhaul, migrating from Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 Business Central. It was through this established relationship that we were entrusted with the CRM implementation as well.
3. The Solution
After conducting a thorough assessment with the client, we recommended Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales as the ideal platform for centralizing customer, deal, and sales activity data.
While Rheon U.S.A. was already using Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales was ultimately selected for Orange Bakery based on its compatibility with existing systems, the ability to use Microsoft accounts, and stronger integration with their current data ecosystem. The implementation brought together information that had previously been scattered across individual sales representatives, creating a shared environment accessible to the entire sales team.
4. Challenges Before Implementation
Orange Bakery's sales team had been managing customer and deal information individually using Excel spreadsheets and email. This approach gave rise to three core problems:
・No company-wide visibility or analysis:
There was no reliable way to track total leads or forecast revenue in real time, creating a bottleneck for timely business decisions.
・Siloed knowledge and activity records:
Information about who was engaging which customers, and how, existed only in individual reps' heads, making collaboration and oversight difficult.
・No foundation for team-wide sales improvement:
Without shared customer relationship histories or interaction logs, it was difficult to build collective knowledge or improve team performance systematically.
The company recognized that consolidating all these individually managed data into a single platform, enabling real-time information sharing, was essential to transforming their sales operations.
Client Feedback
Noritake Fukuda
Before the CRM, each representative managed their own data in Excel and email. Whenever managers needed to report to headquarters, they had to chase down every rep's individual activity, digging through spreadsheets and inboxes. It was a real burden, and we knew we needed a CRM to fix it.
We also had major projects coming up, including a new ERP system and a new factory, so we wanted to get the CRM in place before those got underway.
5. Implementation Approach
One of the most common CRM mistakes is building a system that serves management but gets ignored by the frontline sales staff who actually need to use it. SYSCOM prioritized user adoption from the start, taking the following steps:
①A clean, simple UI designed to minimize friction
Input fields were kept to the essentials, and screen layouts were straightforward so that staff could log their daily activities without feeling burdened. We worked with both managers and sales staff to identify what information was truly necessary, sharing practical use-case scenarios and rolling out the system incrementally.
②Full sales team participation in demos and requirements gathering
To ensure the final system accurately reflected real-world needs, we went beyond initial discovery sessions and conducted hands-on demo walkthroughs with the entire sales team. Seeing the actual interface and navigation flow in action helped align expectations, build buy-in from the ground up, and streamline the requirements definition process.
Client Feedback
As the person in charge of IT, I was simultaneously managing a large-scale ERP migration, so I simply didn't have enough time to dedicate to the CRM project as well. Having SYSCOM take the initiative to engage directly with our sales staff, running the demos and training sessions themselves, was an enormous help.
6. Results
Data Visualization
Real-Time Monitoring & Analysis
Shared Customer History
With Dynamics 365 Sales in place, Orange Bakery can now visualize customer, deal, and sales activity data; monitor and analyze the sales pipeline in real time; and share customer relationship histories and interaction logs across the team. These capabilities have strengthened communication within the sales department and laid the groundwork for a more cohesive, organization-wide approach to selling.
Client Feedback
We only went live with Dynamics 365 Sales in January 2026, so we don't have concrete metrics to share yet, but the centralized data has already made a meaningful difference in our monthly headquarters reporting.
Information that used to live only in people's heads is now being captured in the system, which we expect will be invaluable for onboarding and knowledge transfer when new team members join. For now, we're running the CRM on its own, but once the ERP project is on track, we plan to integrate the two systems so customer data flows seamlessly between them.
