Case Interspiro

Interspiro – keeps you breathing

Interspiro – Keeps You Breathing

Interspiro develops high-quality breathing protection and equipment for diving, firefighting, escape, and rescue missions. It manufactures premium products designed for extreme conditions, serving customers in the military, police, industrial sectors, shipping, and emergency services worldwide. 

With over a hundred years of history, Interspiro originated from the industrial group AGA. The Swedish Nobel laureate Gustaf Dalén joined the company in 1906, and since the 1920s, Interspiro has developed groundbreaking respiratory protection for environments where breathing is impossible, both on land and underwater. The company has reached many technical milestones, with several of its innovations becoming industry standards. 

Today, Interspiro has over 200 employees worldwide and annual revenues of SEK 550 million. 

Who Said What, to Which Customer? 

Interspiro’s digital transformation, in collaboration with Sofigate, began in the first quarter of 2023. Interspiro chose Salesforce knowing the platform could handle everything they needed, both now and in the future, thanks to its comprehensive functionality and the wealth of experience contributed by other users. Salesforce recommended Sofigate as their implementation partner. 

Mikael Andersson at Interspiro initiated the project. He says: 
 

“It was a bit unusual because, despite our size, we had never had a CRM system before. I think this is due to our heritage with the AGA group, which has shaped the company’s DNA. We have historically been focused on technology and innovation, while marketing and customer care are things we’ve learnt in more recent years.”  

Previously, Interspiro employees used three separate systems – Navision, DynamicWeb, and Skillhabit – making it cumbersome to access key customer, pricing, and product information. The need for a centralized master data repository was therefore significant, to give a clear, consolidated overview of customer information.  

Interspiro’s products can be in operation for up to 30 years, but they require regular maintenance. To deliver quality service and identify upsell opportunities throughout a product’s lifecycle, it is crucial for sales teams to know which products customers own, when they were purchased, and which customer personnel hold service certificates to perform maintenance. Since this information was scattered and difficult to access, after-sales activities were largely reactive rather than proactive. 

Another challenge was the time sales teams spent creating quotes. The process was slow and inefficient because sales reps had to gather information from “inside sales” before completing a quote, often resulting in multiple back-and-forth rounds. Additionally, sales reps occasionally presented outdated products or incorrect prices to customers, creating additional friction in the sales process. 

To save time and enhance process quality across the organization, the following measures were defined: 

• Implementation of the Salesforce CRM system, including an integrated solution connecting three systems to establish a central data hub. 

• Standardization and automation of the sales process. 

• Introduction of a structured case management system for customer service and support. 

• Development of an asset management feature to provide an overview of product lifespans, maintenance needs, and service certifications. 

Sofigate worked with a team of five specialists. Thanks to Mikael’s deep knowledge of the business, the work proceeded efficiently and was completed in under six months. 

Eva Österlund at Sofigate, responsible for the project, says the project was enjoyable to work on despite its challenges. She comments: 

“Sure, it was a challenge to integrate the different systems and handle the large volume of information. But it was also rewarding, as we didn’t have to consider any old CRM systems and could start from scratch.” 

She adds that the collaboration with the team at Interspiro was highly positive: 
 “I felt we got to know each other well and had a very positive collaboration.” 

Mikael agrees: 

“The collaboration with Sofigate worked extremely well. What really stands out is how quickly it became a close and efficient partnership. Communication was pleasant and direct. They put in a lot of effort to understand our processes, how we work, and how we want to work, which is no easy feat.” 

Better Customer Service and Increased Profitability 

Salesforce has made it easy to maintain a comprehensive view of each customer’s history, resulting in improvements in both customer service and sales. 

Mikael continues: 
“Today, sales reps can directly view products, prices, and discounts in the system. They can also easily create quotes, and with the click of a button, turn a quote into an order. This saves each sales rep up to a few hours per week, which can now be spent on sales activities, likely reflecting positively in our results.”  

The work to make all employees comfortable with Salesforce and its features is ongoing. Since Interspiro already has experience using e-learning to train customers, they decided to create a course on Salesforce for employees. This has proven to be a highly successful initiative, and Salesforce is now planned for implementation in other companies within the Ocenco group. 

Sofigate has worked to make Interspiro as self-sufficient as possible, so they don’t need to rely on external help in the future.

“They encouraged me to deeply understand and learn the system. Their approach has been to find solutions so we won’t be dependent on them in the future, which I think is excellent. If we need to make major changes or add new functions, we’ll reach out to Sofigate, but otherwise, we’ll try to handle configurations within the solution they implemented,” says Mikael. 

“We’ll of course be available whenever Interspiro needs us, but I’m confident they’ll be able to manage most things internally in the future,” says Eva.