Managing a global energy infrastructure business at scale demands more than operational excellence — it demands the information systems to match. TBEA, a world-leading manufacturer of power transmission and transformation equipment, new energy systems, and advanced materials, operates across 90+ countries with 24,000+ employees, 18 manufacturing parks, and an annual transformer output of 260 million kVA — the highest in the world. The group has built three publicly listed companies and delivers turnkey energy infrastructure projects across power grids, renewable energy, petrochemicals, high-speed rail, and intelligent manufacturing.Behind that global footprint sits a network of specialized subsidiaries, each managing complex B2B sales cycles involving project registration, competitive bidding, multi-stage contract execution, and long-tail after-sales service. For TBEA's industrial automation and controls division — serving sectors including power, oil and gas, petrochemicals, and large industrial enterprises — the commercial operation had outgrown its tools.
The Challenge
As the division expanded its geographic reach and grew its business volume, three operational gaps became increasingly difficult to absorb:
- Paper-based sales management. Front-end sales activity was tracked through paper records and Excel spreadsheets, routed through a central market management team before reaching production and operations. Every step added time, introduced human error, and degraded data quality at the source. Correcting downstream errors was costly and slow.
- Fragmented systems with no unified data layer. The division operated an OA system and a finance platform — but the two ran on separate data inputs, creating regular reconciliation failures. There was no single source of truth for project, contract, or customer data. Decisions were being made on incomplete information.
- Weekly reporting cycles that couldn't support real-time decisions. Business data was aggregated manually on a weekly basis by dedicated personnel. By the time reports reached leadership, conditions had already changed. The division needed a system that could surface operational intelligence in real time — not in arrears.
With nine business units operating across a nationwide sales network, the coordination overhead was compounding. The market management team acted as the central relay for all project, contract, shipment, and after-sales activity — a structural bottleneck that slowed everything it touched.The SolutionFollowing a thorough evaluation, TBEA selected ShareCRM to build a unified business management platform. The decision was anchored in ShareCRM's track record with comparable organizations in the industrial sector, and its implementation team's ability to translate complex operational requirements into a coherent system architecture.ShareCRM began with a comprehensive diagnosis of TBEA's current business structure and information landscape — mapping the nine business units, their workflows, their data dependencies, and the gaps between them. From that foundation, a five-module platform was designed and deployed:
- Opportunity management. A structured pipeline was established from first contact through deal close, with project-centric collaboration built into every stage. Key milestones carry risk flags and early-warning triggers. Outcome data is automatically captured and made available for analysis — giving sales leadership a live view of pipeline health and conversion patterns.
- Bid evaluation and approval. Project data across multiple dimensions is now captured in a standardized format, enabling the system to automatically calculate bid scores and aggregate evaluation results. Approval workflows route through the correct stakeholders without manual intervention, and leadership can access real-time status on any live bid from any location.
- Contract and payment management. Contract values and collection schedules are tracked automatically, with payment due dates triggering proactive reminders to sales personnel. The system calculates overdue aging automatically across all contracts — replacing manual tracking with structured, automated oversight. Multi-dimensional analysis of collection status across contract stages is available on demand.
- Order and delivery execution. Contract execution progress is visible in real time across all business teams, eliminating the information lag that had previously caused repeated handoff failures between sales and operations. Cross-team coordination is faster, communication overhead is lower, and execution status is tracked node by node.
- After-sales service management. Customer complaints and service requests are captured directly in the field and routed to the after-sales team immediately. Response outcomes are logged in real time, and aggregated service data feeds back into product quality improvement processes — closing the loop between customer experience and manufacturing.
The platform was integrated with TBEA's existing OA and collaboration systems via single sign-on, with business notifications pushed directly into the tools teams already used daily. The result: a seamless operational environment spanning 11 first-level departments and more than 30 business management modules.
The Results
- Reporting costs reduced by 70%. The manual effort previously consumed by weekly data aggregation, reconciliation, and reporting was eliminated. What once required dedicated personnel and days of work now happens automatically and continuously.
- Data quality improved by 100%. With a unified data entry layer replacing disconnected inputs across OA, finance, and sales systems, data consistency reached a new baseline. Errors introduced at the source — and the downstream correction costs they generated — were removed from the process entirely.
- Staff efficiency increased by ~40% across all business lines. From frontline sales to project management, contract administration, and after-sales service, teams across the organization operate with materially less friction and overhead.
- Real-time operational visibility across the full business. Project bid data, order production and shipment status, accounts receivable, and performance against targets are now available to leadership in real time — enabling faster, more confident decisions at every level of the organization.
The platform has also established the digital infrastructure foundation for TBEA's broader information systems roadmap — creating a replicable model for future deployments across other divisions and business units.
Conclusion
For a business operating at TBEA's scale and complexity, operational intelligence isn't a nice-to-have — it's a precondition for sustainable growth. By replacing fragmented, manual processes with a unified CRM platform, TBEA's industrial automation division moved from reactive reporting to real-time decision-making — and built the digital foundation its next phase of expansion demands.Ready to bring real-time intelligence to your sales and operations? Talk to a ShareCRM specialist →
