Established in 1991, Protea is recognized as a trusted player in the Japanese cosmetics sector. Yet as the firm sought to expand from a pure supplier B2B model into a direct retail position, it recognized that growth could not be sustained without significant changes to its operating model. The firm had no integrated supply chain management, no ability to capture or measure data insights on consumer, vendors, and products—and ultimately, no measurement or actions against KPI’s. Protea lacked the most basic ability to analyze which consumers had multiple accounts in different branches, or which products were in the highest demand. They had already spent millions on various technical systems—siloed, incomplete solutions that did not talk to each other. Protea was making both strategic and day-to-day decisions ‘in the dark.'

Ekohe defined and implemented Protea's strategic roadmap, creating the firm’s first-ever centralized database for customers, products, order history, and vendors. We enabled business stakeholders to first understand audience behaviour, and then anticipate and act on relevant patterns within that behaviour—including campaigns and data capture, loyalty and ambassador programs, e-learning, online B2B orders and accounting. Protea has transformed, from a firm using technology in only the most minimal capacity, into one that steps ahead of its market and competition; an AI-driven organization, making every business decision based on relevant data, using algorithms that learn from the past to capture future opportunities.

Protea now uses actual data to determine the success of each channel, making it more affordable to reach more people, offering customized content to engage with key audiences, and generating tremendous growth in leads and sales. Since implementation, Protea saw an increase of 150% in total monthly revenue. Ekohe-driven automation (1) creates opportunities for cost reduction and efficiency; (2) offers recommendation and prediction systems to optimize both existing and new campaigns; and (3) enables entry to new business channels. Protea now fully understands their overall operations from multiple angles, and can more intelligently and accurately drive a successful long-term growth strategy.