Background

The customer is a nationwide integrated logistics company offering less-than-truckload, full-truckload and integrated warehousing and distribution services. Manufacturing factories are the main source of shippers for its contract logistics and heavy-goods business, and each regional branch has a key-account development team.

Problems in customer development

  • A factory's shipment volume and cargo type depend on its product category and capacity. Business registration data neither separates factories from trading companies nor reflects production scale.
  • Regional teams compile target lists on their own with inconsistent criteria, and the same factory is sometimes contacted by more than one team.
  • Public sources mostly give switchboard numbers, which rarely reach the managers responsible for logistics and supply chain.

The approach

Choosing regions by cluster. Industrial clusters overlaid on province, city and county divisions show which counties concentrate factories of a given category. Teams compare this with their own outlet and trunk-line network to decide where to develop first.

Segmenting by category and size. Main products and the four-level industry classification select factories whose cargo fits, for example bulky categories such as furniture, sanitary ware and electromechanical equipment. Insured headcount and registered capital can be filtered by range as a reference for company size.

Separating domestic and export business. Factories carrying the export-business flag go into a separate list for the international freight and export business lines.

Reaching decision makers. Beyond switchboard numbers, teams filter for factories with direct contact details of the owner or senior managers, shortening the path to a first conversation.

One corporate account. Headquarters manages regional sub-accounts and their export records under a corporate master account. Exported factories are flagged in later searches and can be filtered out, which prevents duplicate development across teams.

How it is used

Before entering a new region, a team generates a target list with the conditions above. Sales staff can run an AI deep dive on factories in the list to learn their main products, size and types of downstream customers before the first conversation.

Where it applies

The same approach suits logistics, warehousing and supply-chain service companies whose main customers are manufacturing factories.

The company name is withheld and no customer operating data is disclosed.