B2B sales staff spend a substantial amount of their working hours researching where potential customers are planning to open new locations, if there are any changes in management and who has said what about strategic plans or investment decisions. Sales experts focus on these and similar topics because they use them to find points of reference – potential customers will be more likely to be open to discussion if they are contacted in a more personal way. This knowledge is the foundation for success in sales, but every individual sales representative has to invest a lot of time in seeking out this information.

adesso developed an AI-based lead engine using technology from Microsoft for the corporate client sales area of a major German bank. The system uses external data sources such as websites, social media content, search engines and paid company databases. The system automatically searches through every source connected to it, guided by search queries or terms that point towards potential sales opportunities. The application uses automated text analysis tools to clean up the results by removing irrelevant hits and duplicates.

Every member of sales staff has their own dashboard on which the system displays all the relevant hits along with background information. They then evaluate each individual sales stimulus. This feedback makes sure that the quality of the results continually improves.

The system enables staff to find potential customers faster and in a more systematic way. Sales staff can invest more time in making and maintaining contact thanks to the automatically prepared lead information.