When your installations light up Times Square, the FIFA World Cup, and NBA arenas, operational complexity isn't a future problem — it's a daily reality. Absen, founded in 2001, is a globally recognized LED display solutions provider with 14 international offices, deployments in 140+ countries, and more than 50,000 completed installations. Single-brand LED display exports have ranked #1 globally for 12 consecutive years.Absen's commercial model is inherently complex:
- Direct enterprise sales and global channel distribution running in parallel
- Six application domains: advertising, stage, commercial, data visualization, conferencing, and consumer displays
- Four concurrent manufacturing models — ETO, MTO, ATO, and MTS — requiring tight coordination across sales, delivery, and finance
By the time Absen engaged ShareCRM, its commercial systems had not kept pace with its growth.
The Challenge
Absen's leadership identified four interconnected operational gaps that were collectively limiting performance at scale:
- Fragmented customer data. Credit status, receivables, distributor records, and order history lived in separate systems with no consolidated view — making differentiated service and proactive risk management effectively impossible.
- A pipeline running on instinct. The full commercial journey from lead to contract had no IT backbone. Conversion patterns were invisible, forecasting relied on individual judgment, and sales targets had no structured tracking mechanism.
- Manual contract and order management. Global contracts were managed by individuals, not systems. Orders submitted through OA forms introduced high error rates and long processing cycles. Critical decision context failed to carry forward between deal stages, creating repeated handoff failures between sales and delivery.
- Channel operations running on spreadsheets. Thousands of distributors placed orders through parallel systems that didn't reconcile. Quarterly rebate calculations and price-compensation reconciliation consumed days of manual effort every cycle, with errors that were difficult to trace and correct.
The Solution
ShareCRM deployed an integrated CRM architecture across three operational domains — sales management (LTC), channel management (MAPR), and key account management (MCR) — connected to 13 external systems including SAP, OA, TMS, and SSO.
- Unified Customer Intelligence. A 360° customer profile layer was established spanning direct accounts, system integrators, and distributors — consolidating credit status, receivable history, decision-maker relationships, and order records into a single view accessible in real time.
- End-to-End Pipeline Digitization. The full lead-to-cash flow was structured and digitized for the first time. Stage-by-stage deal visibility enabled evidence-based forecasting and early intervention on at-risk opportunities. Complex enterprise deals were supported with decision-chain mapping, ATI/ATB/ATAC evaluation workflows, and cross-functional collaboration tooling.
- Channel Automation. Distributors gained a self-service ordering portal with personalized pricing, auto-generated contracts, and real-time rebate and account balance tracking. The full order flow — submission through approval, order release, and shipment — was automated end-to-end via a single triggered workflow. Quarterly rebate reconciliation was fully automated.
- Contract and Order Lifecycle Management. Contract management was moved entirely onto ShareCRM, covering evaluation, approval, amendment, and termination — with digital signatures and standardized template generation built in. Order submission was replaced with automated downstream workflows, eliminating manual re-entry and its associated errors.
The Results
- System engagement scaled 41×. Daily sales interactions increased from 1,900 to 79,000 — the platform became the operational backbone for 1,000+ sales, marketing, and service personnel.
- Channel and contract processing transformed. Order-to-shipment cycle dropped from 40 minutes to 8 minutes (80% faster); service contract-to-order automation reduced from 10 minutes to 1 minute; quarterly rebate reconciliation compressed from 5 days to 1 hour.
- Data quality and compliance reached new benchmarks. Real-time data visibility improved by 72%, information completeness by 91%, collaboration efficiency by 89%, and business process compliance reached 99%.
- Operational efficiency led the industry. Operating cycle reduced to 42 days in H1 2023 — ahead of all industry peers. Inventory turnover improved steadily; overdue receivables as a proportion of revenue declined consistently.
- 91 process workflows restructured. 14 templates consolidated, 32 approval workflows optimized, 45 templates redesigned to eliminate duplicate data entry.
Conclusion
Absen's digital transformation journey began long before ShareCRM — but it was the CRM layer that finally connected the full commercial operation end-to-end. With sales, channel, and contract management unified on a single platform, Absen now runs its global revenue engine with the speed and visibility its scale demands.Ready to unify your revenue operations at global scale? Talk to a ShareCRM specialist →
