About Kontron
You may not see Kontron’s name on the devices you use, but chances are their technology is behind it.
As a global leader in embedded computing, Kontron provides hardware and software solutions that power everything from industrial automation systems to military aircrafts. Kontron generates over $2B in annual revenue and operates in more than 20 countries worldwide. They deliver mission-critical solutions to industries where precise data and system performance are non-negotiable, including defense, aerospace, medical imaging and transportation .
Kontron America, plays a critical role in this setup, bridging local autonomy with global coordination. But that also came with some serious operational challenges.
How do you make confident decisions without accurate data?
For years, Kontron America operated without a proper CRM. Most of the global organisation was using CRM4All as the standard, but the US team abandoned it early on due to usability issues — opting instead to manage customer data in Smartsheets.
But the change felt like trading one set of challenges for another:
- The team was tracking only a fraction of their sales. While they had eyes on Key Accounts, transactional sales data was often missing, which made long-range planning inaccurate.
- They had no way to track the performance of products by product line, which made it difficult to prioritise their roadmap.
- On top of this, marketing was working with a large budget, running dozens of campaigns and trade shows across North America, but with no way to measure attribution.
This meant that whenever leadership sat down to plan their budget for the following year, they found themselves digging through event records in spreadsheets and relying on guesswork. They were generating reports manually by pulling data from Smartsheets into Tableau — a process that was inefficient, error-prone, and kept key insights out of reach. There had to be a better way.
Moving from fragmented systems to a CRM that scales
As Maria Wilde stepped into her new role as VP of Sales and Product in 2022, she realised this way of working wasn’t sustainable.
“We needed a centralised system to track everything from lead to revenue. We couldn’t continue making strategic decisions based on fragments in spreadsheets.”
Maria decided to look for a partner to implement a robust CRM for them. A partner who could help them overcome their challenges, plus navigate a mindset shift at Kontron. With their roots in hardware, the culture at Kontron was to release ready-to-go products, but a successful CRM rollout meant having to embrace the idea of releasing a version 1.0 and iterating over time.
At this point, VisualLabs had already been supporting other Kontron entities with their CRM4All instance, and the team came recommended. The suggestion was to move Kontron as a group from CRM4All to Dynamics 365. But instead of diving headfirst into a full-scale migration, Kontron decided to pilot the system first where there was a clear need — the North American team.
Together, they designed a solution that would allow Kontron to:
- Manage the profit centers across 12 different entities
- Integrate data across four recent acquisitions into Dynamics 365, including a company with two decades of historical data
- Track lead-to-revenue so sales and marketing teams are aligned
- Analyse sales from direct and partner channels across each of their market segments and product lines, and
- Log customer interactions throughout the sales cycle, including emails, meetings, and product demos
The tangible impact of making decisions based on actionable insights
The team at Kontron America no longer operates in the dark; they’ve been able to make the shift to data-driven decision-making, and the results are felt across every function:
- Data from acquired companies are centralised in Dynamics 365 to align teams internationally
- Leadership can plan for the long term with access to integrated Power BI dashboards and real-time insights from the front lines
- They can track KPIs across regions and identify new OKRs based on shortcomings
- Sales reps and engineers have access to every customer interaction, whether they’re in the office or on the field, so they can seamlessly cover for each other, and
- Entities are able to collaborate closely with their partners without giving access to sensitive customer data, thanks to partner portals integrated into the CRM.
Inspired by Kontron America's success, Kontron Europe joined the initiative in early 2024, soon followed by other entities, including UK, Slovenia, France, and Hungary.
As Maria Wilde sums up:
“The biggest accomplishment for us was getting 12 international entities working together to improve processes and customer satisfaction. All based on actionable data.”
This rapid alignment has increased Kontron’s agility and unified the organisation globally under one powerful ecosystem. This is just one chapter in Kontron’s broader journey with VisualLabs. They’re now working on integrating with partners on a deeper level, tracking product feature requests directly within opportunities, and expanding the use of Power BI across the business.
The foundation is set. Now, it’s time to build on it.
