UK-based industrial equipment and spare parts supplier Nexford Industrial faced a growing coordination problem as its sales team expanded. Customer information was scattered across Excel sheets and email histories, and no one knew where a given proposal stood. A Pipedrive implementation project with Dtech changed the picture entirely.
The Invisible Sales Process
Sales Director James Hartley describes the problem clearly:
"Our five-person sales team was actually capable — but they were working in silos. Two reps could reach out to the same customer separately. We couldn't analyze the deals we lost because nothing was recorded. We were making decisions based on gut feeling, not data."
Monthly sales forecasts were based on verbal updates from reps. This made it impossible to plan growth targets realistically.
Solution: Industry-Specific Pipeline Design
Dtech analyzed Nexford's sales cycle and designed a Pipedrive pipeline tailored to the sector:
- 5-stage pipeline: First contact → Technical meeting → Proposal → Negotiation → Close
- Automated reminders: Task auto-assignment for proposals unanswered for 48 hours
- Lost deal analysis: Mandatory reason selection on every lost deal — price, competitor, budget delay
- Weekly pipeline report: Automatically distributed sales visibility report for management
Existing customer data was migrated from Excel to Pipedrive, and the team completed a 3-day remote training program.
Measurable Results
After the first three months, the results were clear:
Pipeline visibility: Management could see the total active opportunity value and stage distribution in real time.
Follow-up discipline: Automated reminders cut the average proposal response time from 6 days to 1.5 days.
Loss analysis: 38% of lost deals turned out to be lost due to "follow-up delays" rather than price — a finding that redirected the entire sales training program.
A Foundation for Sustainable Growth
James Hartley sums up the project's biggest contribution:
"Now we know why we lose deals. That alone is revolutionary. Pipedrive didn't just give us software — it gave us the discipline to manage our sales process."