Volgren has turned to SugarAI’s Precision Selling platform to bring AI-driven clarity to a sales cycle that gets more complex as the business grows – from first tender to years of after-sales support. We hear from Yuri Tessari, Volgren’s Chief Customer Officer and Head of Strategy, who explains how the adoption of the SugarAI platform has transformed business processes.
Volgren, Australia’s leading bus body manufacturer, integrates cutting-edge technologies and materials to deliver vehicles that meet the highest industry standards.
Visibility across the whole life cycle is critical and had become challenging for the business as it scaled. To tackle the issue, Volgren moved its sales, service and revenue operations onto SugarAI’s Sugar Sell Premier, Sugar’s comprehensive sales force automation solution that includes sales intelligence, advanced forecasting and analytics, productivity tools, a data enrichment news feed and geo mapping.
This solution replaces manual, disconnected processes with AI-driven guidance on which deals to prioritise, where churn risk is building and how forecasts are tracking. The platform will be fully integrated with Volgren’s Epicor ERP system, so data flows automatically from quote through to order fulfilment rather than relying on manual data entry and guesswork.
With Sugar Sell Premier, Volgren will use Mobileforce CPQ for SugarAI – a sales quoting tool that automates manual quote processes and accelerates quote-to-close times, enabling quoting directly from Sugar.
The result is sharper sales pipeline visibility and case management, faster quoting and better lead-time management on parts — which is key to building and maintaining relationships and growing revenues. Sugar is generating time savings for both sales and finance teams while improving forecasting and lead-time management for parts.
“By helping Volgren improve RFP readiness and responsiveness, margin control and customer satisfaction – Sugar is helping us in areas that will drive significant revenue opportunities and competitive advantage – well beyond mere incremental process improvements,” said Yuri Tessari, Volgren’s Chief Customer Officer and Head of Strategy. “We consider Sugar a true partner in our long-term growth strategy.”
“Sales and service leaders need solutions that bring clarity, not complexity, to their jobs,” said Adam Frank, Sugar’s Senior Vice President and General Manager for APAC. “With smart AI tools designed to supercharge the seller experience with improved prioritisation and productivity, Sugar is helping Volgren sales and service reps to be more confident and capable of taking the next best action at any given moment.”
Yuri Tessari, Volgren’s Chief Customer Officer and Head of Strategy, sheds light on the partnership with Sugar and the comprehensive benefits.
How does the adoption of SugarAI fit into Volgren’s broader digital transformation strategy?
Digitalising our key and critical processes has been a major focus for Volgren in recent years and customer relationship management sits at the heart of that. Our industry is shifting from a family-business model where relationships were built personally and organically to one defined by multinational procurement projects with highly complex and demanding reporting requirements. SugarAI gives our teams the tools to perform at that level: better visibility, stronger time management and the discipline to keep pace with an industry that’s changing fast.
How would you describe the implementation of Sugar Sell Premier, including key challenges and milestones?
The implementation has been well managed. In manufacturing especially, you expect a few surprises along the way and we have had them — mostly around our business model, products engineering structure and the interfaces with existing systems like our ERP. The bigger piece, though, is the mindset shift. Sugar isn’t just new technology; it’s a new way of working that replaces long-standing habits. So, the internal journey of understanding, testing and adopting the system has been every bit as important as the technical build.
How critical was the integration with your ERP system in enabling seamless data flow from quote to order fulfilment?
It was fundamental – without it, the tool would add little value. Our ERP has matured over the years and so has the level of trust our teams place in its data and processes. All the critical data our CPQ relies on lives in the ERP, so a seamless flow from quote to fulfilment depends entirely on that integration working well.
What tangible improvements have you seen in sales productivity since adopting the solution?
We’re still early in the rollout, but the direction is already clear. The system is sharpening our time management and formalising things the team has always done well informally – turning good instincts into a repeatable, visible process.
Can you share a specific example where better data or visibility led to a measurable business outcome?
Our costing, pricing and quoting process used to be heavily manual, often involving several people across different departments. That created an unacceptable lag before a quote reached the customer. We’ve gone from days to minutes. Quotes can now be produced in the field, with approvals formalised along the way. For us and for the customers we serve, that’s a major step change.
What new revenue opportunities or efficiencies have emerged since implementation that weren’t visible before?
The clearest gains are in efficiency, time management and the formalisation of both our processes and our documentation. Beyond that, we now have real pipeline visibility and control which is sharpening our forecasting accuracy and surfacing opportunities we simply couldn’t see before.
What does the future hold for Volgren now that its technical capabilities have provided a competitive edge?
Our investment in digital capability is what lets us keep pace with and stay ahead of a fast-changing industry. As Volgren grows across markets and product lines, mature, connected systems mean we can scale that growth without losing the speed, accuracy and customer focus that set us apart. The competitive edge isn’t the technology itself; it’s what disciplined, well-integrated processes let our people do with it.
