CASF transforms 25 years of Corian® sales excellence with Zoho
"One of the main benefits of enabling automation with Zoho was that we could work on more projects than before. Previously, our team was handling between one and 20 projects on average, which we scaled up to managing an average of 50 projects at any given time. This really helps us leverage our current team to be able to deliver greater benefits to our customers."
The company
Established in 1998, CASF Australia Pty Ltd is a national distributor that specializes in Corian® and timber surfaces and caters to a diverse range of industries, including residential, commercial, and hospitality sectors. Headquartered in New South Wales, Australia, CASF has built a strong reputation for outstanding service and technical support, making it a leading supplier in the building materials and consumer goods industries.
CASF Australia has collaborated with renowned clients across multiple sectors, delivering high-quality surface solutions. Notable projects include McDonald's service counters, KPMG front desk, Sydney Airport bathrooms, Woolworths customer service counters, Qantas check-in counters, Canberra Centre cladding & amenities, W Sydney Hotel bathrooms and Westmead Private Hospital nurses stations & patient room bathrooms.
These partnerships showcase CASF's commitment to providing durable, hygienic, and aesthetically refined surface solutions tailored to modern architectural and design needs.
In addition to distributing Corian® and timber surfaces, CASF offers a range of other Corian® products, including sinks, basins, wash planes and baths. The company is dedicated to delivering innovative and high-quality surface solutions that meet the evolving needs of the design and construction industries.
The challenge
After moving away from Excel spreadsheets, CASF was already using a CRM solution but recognized the need for a more robust and flexible system to react effectively to its ever-changing business landscape. Additionally, with the increasing pace of business, the company understood that automation would be the key to managing evolving demands.
CASF aimed to automate key communication and information that flows into the CRM to allocate their human resources more effectively. The goal was to enable seamless integrations between the CRM and other systems, automate the flow of data, and streamline operations. This would free up time for the operations and sales teams and enable them to focus on closing deals faster and more efficiently.
However, when CASF approached their current CRM provider for a solution, the cost of implementing the necessary automation was prohibitively expensive. Realizing the need for a more flexible, scalable, and cost-effective option, the company began searching for a CRM solution that could meet their growing needs without a hefty price tag.
The solution
Zoho popped up in a conversation among CASF's confidants, and they immediately started researching Zoho CRM. Fast forward to when ASN Business Solutions, a Zoho Advanced Partner, was entrusted with the responsibility to help CASF switch from Salesforce to Zoho. The primary reason for the switch could be outlined as follows:
- Better user experience and quick to learn
- Easy and fast implementation
- Higher price-benefit ratio
- Quick and easy customisation capability
- Simpler integration capabilities
- Scalable and constantly evolving to suit the business's changing needs
Managing B2C sales, from lead creation to delivery
For direct sales (B2C), which typically originate from the website through sample requests, quote requests, or general inquiries, CASF has integrated Zoho Forms with Zoho CRM to automate lead capturing.
Once a lead is added to Zoho CRM, it's automatically linked to the Orders module, which tracks the entire journey from inquiry to final delivery. This marks the beginning of real-time communication, managed by CASF's sales team. Upon order confirmation, the merchandise team is automatically notified and instructed to check inventory, update the order status, pick and pack the items, and finalise shipping documents.
Leveraging Zoho CRM's integration and automation capabilities, CASF ensures that customers receive real-time shipping notifications as soon as their order is packed and dispatched. Customers can also track their order status, which enhances transparency and trust. This end-to-end automation has helped CASF streamline a previously fragmented process, improve operational efficiency, and strengthen customer relationships.
Managing B2B sales by leveraging the Opportunities module
CASF primarily caters to B2B buyers such as architects, designers, builders, contractors, and fabricators. Given the longer sales cycles and multiple touchpoints involved, B2B sales require structured tracking, which is best managed using the Opportunities module in Zoho CRM.
When they receive an inquiry from a B2B buyer, the lead is added to Zoho CRM and mapped to the appropriate opportunity record. CASF follows a structured five-phase sales pipeline to ensure seamless progression from inquiry to deal closure:
- Initial project stage: CASF engages with architects and designers.
- Material specification stage: CASF's material is approved and included in the official design and construction plans.
- Building tender stage: CASF manages tender from builders.
- Joinery tender stage: CASF collaborates with joiners for execution.
- Fabricator stage: CASF finalises sales and ensures smooth material delivery.
Additionally, the customer service team works closely with sales to manage inventory and ensure materials are available when needed. An opportunity remains active in Zoho CRM until it's marked as closed-won, signifying a successful sale. Throughout this process, the system tracks multiple opportunities simultaneously, enabling efficient project management and order fulfillment.
Driving business growth with Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics
CASF leverages Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics to gain real-time insights into sales, marketing, and inventory management. By integrating these tools, CASF has built a data-driven ecosystem that enhances customer relationships, optimises inventory, and improves decision-making.
National sales dashboards for smarter decision-making
Zoho CRM captures and organises all sales data, while Zoho Analytics transforms it into actionable insights. CASF's sales dashboards provide a clear view of the following:
- Opportunity pipeline tracking
- Customer sales history
- Average sale price and profitability
Enhancing marketing with real-time insights
With Zoho CRM capturing every customer interaction and Zoho Analytics providing deep insights, CASF can track marketing performance effectively via the following metrics:
- Marketing-qualified leads
- Sample order tracking
- Website engagement analytics
Customer-centric inventory management
Zoho CRM tracks product demand and order history, while Zoho Analytics helps optimize stock levels by identifying purchasing trends. CASF's inventory replenishment team uses this data to achieve the following:
- Forecast stock requirements accurately based on CRM sales data.
- Align inventory levels with demand trends to ensure product availability.
- Reduce wastage and avoid stock shortages by leveraging predictive analytics.
Trend analysis
Zoho also helps CASF make informed business decisions across multiple areas. By tracking five-year customer sales histories, the team identified a dropoff in new customers that led them to make strategic improvements to training, support, and ordering tools. They've also optimized profitability metrics and pricing policies based on data-driven insights. Additionally, inventory forecasting has improved through reports that aggregate project pipeline data and ensure material availability aligns with future demand. These insights enable CASF to address challenges proactively and streamline operations.
With Zoho CRM and Analytics, we have real-time visibility into our data. Just before this meeting, I spotted a shift in product demand through a CRM report—one of our popular colours was being replaced by a new trend. I immediately informed our inventory team to adjust stock levels, ensuring we don't overstock outdated colours while meeting demand for the latest trends. In our industry, colour and design evolve like fashion, and having this level of insight helps us stay ahead, optimise inventory, and ensure customers get what they need, when they need it.
Seamless integrations that enhance customer relationships and sales efficiency
CASF has significantly improved its sales process and customer relationships by integrating Zoho CRM with its ERP system. Every night, invoicing data is automatically extracted from the ERP and uploaded into Zoho WorkDrive, where another automation picks it up and syncs it into the Invoices module in Zoho CRM.
This integration enables the sales team to access up-to-date sales histories at the customer level and track trends over three- or even five-year periods. By combining this data with opportunity pipeline insights, sales reps get a comprehensive view of customer interactions—including both past transactions and ongoing deals.
With Zoho CRM accessible via mobile apps, tablets, and laptops, sales teams can retrieve the latest customer data anytime, anywhere. This empowers them to make informed decisions, strengthen relationships, and provide proactive service—all of which ultimately enhances customer satisfaction.
This integration is one of the best things we've done. Our sales team now has real-time access to customer data at their fingertips—whether on their phone, iPad, or laptop—helping them serve customers better and close deals faster.
Transforming the business with ASN Business Solutions
ASN Business Solutions, Zoho's Advanced Partner in Australia, has been a key driver in transforming CASF's sales and operations. From the initial discovery phase to implementation and ongoing optimization, ASN has played a crucial role in helping CASF leverage Zoho's full potential. Their expertise ensured a smooth transition from Salesforce to Zoho One, eliminated inefficiencies, and unlocked new growth opportunities.
"Transitioning years of data from Salesforce to a new system was never easy, but ASN made it possible, and we migrated within weeks," says Craig Smith, Director at CASF. "Their deep understanding of our business needs and Zoho's ecosystem allowed us to hit the ground running with minimal disruption."
This transition has empowered CASF's sales team to scale their operations significantly. Previously managing 10 to 20 projects at a time, they can now efficiently handle up to 50 projects simultaneously.
Zoho's mobile application - A Game Changer
Zoho's mobile apps have transformed the way CASF's sales team works. Rachel Polidano, Commercial Specification Manager at CASF, highlights how the Zoho CRM mobile app has enabled sales reps to access customer data and take notes using the voice-to-text feature—all while on the move.
The ability to seamlessly work in Zoho CRM, whether on my laptop, iPad, or phone, has made our workflow so much smoother.
Beyond CRM, CASF also leverages Zoho Analytics and Zoho Cliq mobile apps to enhance real-time collaboration and data accessibility. Whether reviewing reports, sharing insights, or staying connected with the team, these apps have made the teams more efficient.
Benefits and ROI
Zoho has streamlined CASF's sales, marketing, and customer management, as well as driven automation, efficiency, and smarter decision-making.
- Data-driven decisions: Real-time insights help optimize stock levels, forecast demand, and refine strategies.
- Seamless sales and order management: Automated lead capture (B2C) and a structured five-phase pipeline (B2B) ensure smooth project tracking.
- Smarter customer engagement: A nightly ERP sync provides instant access to up-to-date sales histories, while Zoho Campaigns enables targeted outreach.
- Higher productivity and cost savings: Instant access to analytics eliminates developer dependency, and automated workflows replace manual processes.
By leveraging Zoho, CASF has not only optimised internal operations but also enhanced customer relationships to ensure long-term business growth.
Zoho has been a game-changer—data at our fingertips, seamless communication, and better decision-making, all leading to stronger customer relationships and business success.
- Industry typeWholesale Building Materials
- EmployeesBelow 50
- Type of businessB2B, B2C
Looking forward
CASF and Zoho share a common vision of leveraging technology to drive efficiency, automation, and customer-centric solutions. This shared commitment has strengthened their partnership, with CASF continuously exploring new ways to enhance operations using Zoho's ecosystem.
Currently, CASF relies on multiple Zoho applications for sales, marketing, and customer management. Moving forward, the team plans to deepen its use of Zoho Desk to streamline customer service operations and improve response times. Additionally, Zoho SalesIQ will provide valuable insights into website visitor behavior and enable CASF to optimize engagement strategies and enhance the customer experience.
With ongoing support from ASN Business Solutions, CASF is well-positioned to further refine its Zoho implementation and ensure long-term efficiency, innovation, and business growth.
At Zoho, we take immense pride in supporting CASF in its journey toward operational excellence and long-term business growth.
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