From SAP silos to a single source of truth for sales, R&D and service
Nanostuffs implemented Salesforce Sales Cloud for Godrej Astec Lifesciences, replacing fragmented SAP-based sales workflows and email-driven complaint management with automated quotations, structured case management, and a custom Stage-Gate R&D tracking application — cutting quotation time by 80% and giving leadership instant R&D pipeline visibility.
Quotes took 10 minutes each in SAP, complaints disappeared into email threads, and no one could tell the CEO which new products were actually moving through R&D — until Salesforce became the single operating layer.
At a glance
Client
Godrej Astec Lifesciences — a leading Indian manufacturer of agrochemical active ingredients and intermediates
Challenge
10-minute manual quotations in SAP, customer complaints lost in email, and zero real-time visibility into the new-product R&D pipeline
Solution
Salesforce Sales Cloud with auto-generated multi-currency quotations (under 2 min), Case Management for complaints, and a custom Stage-Gate R&D tracker
Result
80% faster quotes, instant complaint tracking, automated ops handoffs, and a live R&D dashboard replacing days of status chasing
Three disconnected systems, one growing business
Godrej Astec Lifesciences Limited is a prominent player in the Indian agrochemicals and specialty chemicals sector, manufacturing active ingredients and intermediates for crop-protection products sold domestically and exported worldwide. With a portfolio spanning enterprise business, CDMO partnerships, and technology tie-ups, the company's operations are complex and cross-functional.
Before engaging Nanostuffs, Astec managed all sales contracts and order workflows inside SAP. While SAP handled ERP functions well, it was not designed for front-office agility — generating a single quotation took roughly 10 minutes of manual effort, after which the quote had to be emailed separately to the customer. There was no automatic mechanism to notify the internal operations team once a contract was finalised, creating a delay between signing and fulfilment that compounded with every deal.
At the same time, customer complaints were handled entirely over email. Threads got buried, resolution timelines were invisible, and there was no central record to audit — making it impossible to measure response times or identify recurring issues. Meanwhile, Astec's R&D pipeline — governed by a rigorous five-gate Stage-Gate process — was tracked through spreadsheets and documents, leaving leadership without real-time insight into which products were progressing, stalled, or blocked at a gate review. Checking the status of a single product meant the CEO or COO had to reach out to multiple people and wait — sometimes for days — just to get a straight answer.
Engagement Snapshot
- Industry
- Agrochemicals & Specialty Chemicals
- Geography
- India (domestic & international exports)
- Core Platform
- Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Integration
- SAP (ERP back-office)
- Custom App
- Stage-Gate R&D Tracker
- Quote Time
- ~10 min → under 2 min
Why Salesforce was the right core for unifying sales, service, and R&D visibility
Astec needed a platform that could handle structured sales workflows — quotation to contract to delivery handoff — while also being flexible enough to support a completely custom R&D tracking application. SAP excelled at back-office ERP, but the front-office processes demanded something purpose-built for CRM, automation, and rapid customisation.
Salesforce Sales Cloud provided the out-of-the-box CRM backbone, while its platform extensibility allowed Nanostuffs to build a bespoke Stage-Gate application without writing a separate system. The result: one login, one data model, and one reporting layer across sales, complaints, and product development.
What Salesforce Sales Cloud handles natively
- Lead and opportunity management with configurable sales stages and pipeline dashboards
- Quotation generation with built-in emailing — product selection, pricing rules, and multi-currency support (INR and USD) — reducing quote turnaround from ~10 minutes to under 2 minutes
- Case Management for structured complaint tracking, assignment rules, escalation logic, and SLA monitoring — replacing untrackable email threads with full audit trails
- Automated email notifications that instantly alert the operations team when a contract is created, eliminating the manual handoff delay that previously slowed fulfilment
Where custom engineering was needed
Salesforce has no native Stage-Gate product development module. Astec's five-gate process — spanning opportunity estimation, proof of concept, process development, CAPEX approval, and commercialisation — required a custom application with gate-specific checklists, multi-stakeholder approval workflows, Go/No-Go decision capture, and real-time pipeline dashboards. This was the hard problem Nanostuffs had to solve.
What we built
01 · Layer
Quotation & Contract Engine
Sales reps select products and the system auto-generates quotations in INR for domestic customers or USD for international buyers — cutting quote creation from ~10 minutes to under 2 minutes. Quotations are emailed to customers directly from Salesforce. Once a contract is created, an automated notification instantly alerts the internal operations team to begin delivery fulfilment — zero handoff delay.
Sales Cloud · Multi-Currency02 · Layer
Case Management for Complaints
Customer complaints that previously drowned in email threads are now logged as Salesforce Cases with full traceability. Assignment rules route each case to the right team, escalation timers enforce SLA adherence, and dashboards give management complete visibility into open, pending, and resolved issues.
Case Management · SLA Tracking03 · Layer
Stage-Gate R&D Tracker
A purpose-built application that mirrors Astec's five-gate new product development process (A0 → A4). Each product record carries gate-specific checklists, required participants, Go/No-Go criteria, and approval workflows — giving the COO and CEO a live dashboard view of the entire R&D pipeline.
Custom Objects · DashboardsDigitising a five-gate R&D process that no off-the-shelf CRM supports
Astec's Stage-Gate process governs every new product from initial opportunity sizing (Gate 1) through proof of concept, process development, and CAPEX approval, all the way to commercialisation (Gate 5). Each gate involves different stakeholders — R&D heads, BD managers, pilot managers, the COO, and the CEO — with distinct Go/No-Go criteria at every stage.
A simple task-management tool or checklist could not capture the complexity: gates are not sequential for every project type (CDMO, Enterprise, Partnership), some stages run in parallel, and the decision criteria differ by gate — from chemistry capability checks at Gate 1 to IRR and ROCE benchmarks at Gate 5.
The solution was not a project management layer bolted onto Salesforce — it was a data-model-first approach that treated each product as a living record advancing through configurable stage objects.
Nanostuffs modelled each gate as a related object with its own required fields, participant roles, and approval logic. Product records move through stages A0 to A4 only when all gate criteria are satisfied and the designated gatekeeper (COO for Gates 1–4, CEO for Gate 5) has signed off. Dashboards slice the pipeline by project type, stage, and gatekeeper — turning a previously opaque process into a transparent, auditable system.
Before
- R&D pipeline tracked in spreadsheets and documents with no single view
- Gate reviews conducted via meetings with no recorded Go/No-Go decisions
- Leadership had to ask multiple people and wait days to learn the status of a single product
- Quotations took ~10 minutes each in SAP, then had to be emailed separately to customers
- Complaints buried in email — no audit trail, no SLA tracking, no resolution metrics
- Manual handoff between sales and operations after contract signing caused fulfilment delays
After
- Every product record lives in Salesforce with gate-by-gate progress visible in real time
- Go/No-Go decisions are captured with timestamps, criteria scores, and approver identity
- COO and CEO see pipeline dashboards instantly — no more chasing people for status updates
- Quotes auto-generated and emailed in under 2 minutes — an 80% reduction in turnaround
- Every complaint tracked as a Case with assignment rules, SLA timers, and resolution dashboards
- Operations team notified automatically the moment a contract is created — zero delay to fulfilment
How we delivered it
A phased rollout — starting with the highest-pain process and expanding module by module — so Astec saw value at every step.
Discovery & Process Mapping
Mapped existing SAP sales workflows (including the 10-minute quotation bottleneck), email complaint handling, and the full Stage-Gate process (all five gates, three project types, stakeholder roles) to define the Salesforce data model.
Sales Cloud & Quotation Setup
Configured Sales Cloud with products, price books for INR and USD, quotation templates with built-in emailing, and automated notifications to the operations team upon contract creation — eliminating the manual handoff entirely.
Case Management & Stage-Gate App
Deployed Case Management for complaint tracking with assignment rules and SLA escalation, and built the custom Stage-Gate application with gate objects, approval processes, and R&D pipeline dashboards.
Training & Adoption
Conducted role-based training for sales, R&D, BD, and leadership teams. Iterated on dashboard layouts and gate criteria based on user feedback during the first review cycles.
What changed for Godrej Astec Lifesciences
Real numbers only — pending metrics await client-approved data.
faster quotations — from ~10 min in SAP to under 2 min with built-in emailing
full Stage-Gate R&D process digitised with instant dashboard visibility for leadership
complaints migrated from email to Case Management with SLA tracking and faster resolution
operations notified automatically on contract creation — zero delay to fulfilment start
What once required 10 minutes per quote, days to check a product's R&D status, and email archaeology to trace a complaint now happens in minutes, seconds, and clicks — from a single platform that sales, service, R&D, and leadership all share.
“Salesforce gave us what SAP and email never could — a single place where our sales team generates quotes in under two minutes, our customers' complaints are tracked to closure, and our leadership can see exactly where every new product stands in the R&D pipeline without asking anyone.”
Tarun Surya
Leadership · Godrej Astec Lifesciences
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