Client
A North American industrial supplier with tens of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, and service providers in its CRM.
Challenge
The client’s account database included more than 50,000 accounts, many with missing or outdated industry codes. Some had internal “custom industry” labels but no standardized codes, making it difficult to build accurate manufacturing vs. distribution segments or run vertical-specific campaigns.
Objectives
- Append standardized industry codes to daily batches of up to 150 accounts, focusing on manufacturing and MRO-related segments.
- Process a one-time backlog file of ~8,000 accounts within 1–2 weeks.
- Ensure that even accounts with only L1/L2 internal labels could be mapped to usable industry classifications.
Solution
- Implemented a daily enrichment pipeline, receiving new or updated accounts Tuesday through Saturday at a fixed time.
- Mapped accounts to standardized industry codes wherever possible, using internal labels (L1/L2) and client disclosures when formal codes were unavailable.
- Stored results in a consistent xlsx template, using date-stamped filenames for each processing day.
- Parallel-processed the 8,000-record backlog while maintaining daily turnaround for smaller batches.
Execution Highlights
- Completed the 8,000-record backlog in just under 10 working days, ahead of the upper-end SLA.
- Maintained daily processing of up to 150 records with a same- or next-business-day turnaround.
- Achieved standardized codes or high-confidence mapped labels for more than 90% of the total records processed.
Results
- The client’s operations team could segment accounts into manufacturing vs. distribution vs. services with much higher accuracy, impacting list pulls for hundreds of campaigns annually.
- Sales enablement reported that territory and vertical assignments for reps were now based on reliable industry tagging, reducing manual overrides by an estimated 30%.
- At an agreed per-record rate, the client gained a predictable, scalable mechanism to keep its industrial account base continuously clean.
Impact
Consistent industry coding transformed a messy industrial and distribution account universe into a reliable foundation for targeted selling, distributor programs, and executive reporting.
