The economist Fernando Cymrot – Forbes Under 30 in 2017 in the Business category – and the business administrator Vinicius Dias started their entrepreneurial journey in their early twenties and, today, twelve years later, they are revolutionizing the traditional e-commerce in Brazil and now aiming for the international market. By revolution, we understand the approach that the company founded by them in 2012 adopts to leverage the digital sales of large and medium-sized companies to an exponential growth level. The CWS Platform, which enables companies with complex sales processes to 100% digitize their sales, has provided its clients with improvements in key indicators, such as up to a 30% increase in sales capacity and up to 4 percentage points in operational margin. For this year, the estimate is to exceed R$ 1 billion in transaction volumes in digital sales for its clients.
The company is in full expansion: by 2024, it foresees a 300% growth in GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume), and has started its internationalization in Europe, taking its first steps in Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland. With 100% proprietary technology, the CWS Platform has built a robust portfolio, serving over 50 Enterprise clients in diverse sectors such as agribusiness, automotive, and construction materials, including names like Leo Madeiras and Würth. The company’s expertise in digitizing complex sales processes and its proprietary technology were crucial for its rapid rise in the market.
Thinking of digital sales only as e-commerce is an old mindset
Unlike the traditional market concept, where the e-commerce platform is seen as a new customer service channel, CWS Platform promotes a deeper view on the subject. According to the company’s approach, the digital platform is an essential pillar in the digitalization of companies’ relationships with their customers, with the sales and service team being the main pillar in this process. The digitalization of commercial processes promotes closer relationships with customers, integrating sales, marketing, logistics, and finance departments.
According to Vinícius Dias, founder and CEO of the company, this combination allows the optimization of steps that would traditionally require a lot of time and effort from companies. It makes the sales process less operational and more strategic. “The digitalization of a large part of Brazilian companies is incomplete, and they lose competitiveness every day because of it. Thinking of digital sales only as e-commerce is an old mindset, which can cost an organization its life. It’s not enough to gather Artificial Intelligence, data analysis automation, and other innovative technological solutions. At CWS Platform, these solutions are integrated under a single software, allowing teams to know what’s going on with sales and make the best business decisions quickly,” explains Dias.
The executive believes so much in the concept of unifying sales that he avoids common market terms, such as omnichannel, or multichannelity. In his analysis, everything is part of the digital way of transacting, which makes sales teams less ‘order takers’ and more consultative, prepared for the new demands of complex sales journeys.
Being fully integrated into a single solution and with highly interactive tools, the CWS Platform software is able to generate data in two ways: seller-customer and customer-seller, with real-time commercial action suggestions, such as flexibility in offered commercial terms and remote support during sales. It also works with experiments in Generative AI in different areas, such as product catalog improvement, predictive sales suggestions, and more.
12-year journey began with experience in the automotive industry
After a career started by Vinicius Dias and Fernando Cymrot in the financial market, with experience in renowned companies such as Goldman Sachs and JK Capital, respectively, their journey as entrepreneurs began with the launch of Canal da Peça, the first marketplace specialized in the automotive sector. By identifying the potential of digitization to optimize the auto parts distribution chain, they developed a platform that facilitated the buying and selling of products, creating a more efficient and connected environment.
In 2016, major brands in the automotive sector, such as SKF and Cofap, turned to CWS Platform to develop custom portals that would bring their brands closer to their distributors and customers. This demand was the basis for the company’s evolution, which began to offer white-label solutions (SaaS format), connecting distributors and retailers’ stocks directly with their customers. This strategy not only improved the user experience but also strengthened the relationship between brands and their partners.
“When we first thought about the CWS Platform, we didn’t want to serve just one market. It was designed to work across various industries and ensure scalability to digitize absolutely 100% of companies’ sales, meeting international security standards and with lower implementation costs. We were also born digital, which makes all the difference when it comes to operating our software, with solutions that were already prepared for this environment, without the need to create addons and adaptations. The idea with technology is to empower the sales team,” says Fernando Cymrot, founder and CFO.
The business model of CWS Platform has also attracted the attention of investors, resulting in three rounds of investments totaling R$ 60 million, the last one in 2020. This capital was crucial for expanding operations and enhancing the platform’s technology.
