Why This Matters to Distributors: Continental Battery Systems is moving artificial intelligence deeper into sales operations, deploying technology designed to identify changes in customer accounts and direct sales representatives toward potential revenue risks and opportunities across a nationwide distribution network.
Continental Battery Systems is deploying an artificial intelligence platform across its sales organization to identify changes in customer accounts and recommend actions to sales representatives serving more than 45,000 customer locations nationwide.
The battery distributor has signed a multiyear agreement with Emerix to implement the technology, which will analyze account activity and flag potential revenue risks and sales opportunities for territory and inside sales representatives. The system also will provide representatives with the reasoning behind each alert and a recommended next step.
Sales managers will receive a broader view of account coverage and revenue health across their regions, giving them another tool to prioritize coaching and prepare for customer account reviews.
The companies expect the system to go live within 12 weeks.
The deployment extends AI beyond reporting and analysis and into day-to-day sales execution at Continental. Rather than requiring representatives to identify changes by reviewing customer and transaction data themselves, the system is designed to surface accounts that may require attention and route them to the representatives responsible for those customers.
For Continental, that means applying AI across a sizable distribution operation. Founded in 1932, the company distributes batteries, energy storage systems and recycling solutions and operates more than 160 locations and five regional distribution centers. Its customers include original equipment manufacturers, aftermarket providers, and major retailers.
“We’ve spent nearly a century building one of the largest battery distribution networks in North America,” Continental Chief Information Officer Jim Kitchen said. “Staying ahead now means putting technology to work inside the way we actually run the business, not around it.”
Kitchen said the technology is intended to help Continental respond more quickly to changes across its customer base, anticipate customer needs and improve customer experience.
The project reflects a shift in how distributors are beginning to apply AI. Instead of using the technology primarily to generate reports or summarize information, Continental is putting it into a workflow intended to influence which accounts salespeople pursue and what actions they take.
Emerix CEO and co-founder Ariel Palones said large branch networks generate more information than sales teams can review on their own.
“The value is never the signal,” Palones said. “It’s getting the right account in front of the right person while there’s still time to act.”
Emerix said its technology operates within companies’ existing business systems and can use data and other signals to determine a response and initiate actions. The company said its platform manages more than $10 billion in supply chain transactions across more than 15 active workflows.
Continental serves markets ranging from passenger and heavy-duty vehicles to powersports, marine, recreational vehicles, lawn and garden equipment and industrial applications.
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