Westing built the structure before accelerating growth
In 2025, Westing gathered processes, projects, customer information and documentation into one system. Now the company is taking the leap – with the foundations in place for further development.
Westing has supplied paint systems and consulting services to ships and industry in Sunnmøre since 1981, and is currently located in Hareid. The company serves customers along the entire Norwegian coast and has developed into AkzoNobel's largest paint distributor in Europe. Now they are gearing up for a new growth phase with a larger sales organisation.
At Westing, information was scattered across Teams, email, personal folders and notepads. There was no clear structure linked to customers and projects, and a great deal of time was spent searching for information and coordinating. What began as a need for a CRM system turned out to be about something much bigger: how the whole company worked with documents, projects, processes and collaboration.
In 2025, Westing gathered customer information, projects, processes, quality and documentation in Business Online. The fact that the platform is built on Microsoft 365 was crucial: employees could continue in Teams and Outlook, the tools they already knew, instead of having to learn a completely new system. All documents were given a natural home, linked to a company, project or as governing documentation.
The sales team and the technical team are now working as one team on a single shared platform, and their capacity has increased – not because they are working harder, but because they are working in a more structured way. A ship register notifies the sales team before a vessel is due to enter dry dock, ensuring that customer follow-up takes place in advance rather than afterwards. New recruits get up to speed more quickly, and the structure is in place for Westing to scale up its sales organisation further.
First structure, then growth
Westing has been supplying paint systems and consultancy services to the shipping and industrial sectors since 1981. Based in Hareid in Sunnmøre, the company serves customers along the entire Norwegian coast and has grown to become AkzoNobel’s largest paint distributor in Europe.
Facing a new phase of growth, Westing realised that their way of working was too cumbersome to continue growing with.
The information was very scattered across Teams, email and personal folders, and on local desktops. And not least in notebooks. We lacked a clear structure linked to customer and project. It was difficult to find things, and a lot was up in the air., says Agathe Teige Eiksund, CEO of Westing.
Like many other growing companies, Westing realised that what worked today might become cumbersome as the number of employees, customers and projects increased. They therefore decided to streamline their operations and establish a structure before continuing to grow. The aim was simple: the systems should work for the company, not against it.
The challenge was greater than a new CRM system could solve
The starting point was a need for better and more frequent customer follow-up and improved internal collaboration. Westing recognised the need for a CRM system and, at the same time, considered increasing its staffing levels. As the project progressed, it became clear that the challenge extended beyond sales and customer data.
We spent an incredible amount of time searching and coordinating. Overall, it was about how we worked with documents, projects, processes and collaboration., It is Eiksund.
In 2025, Westing began using Business Online. This provided a common structure for customer information, projects, processes, quality and documentation within a single platform integrated with Microsoft 365.
We had tried other CRM systems previously, but it was a big plus that Business Online was part of the Microsoft ecosystem we were already working in. We avoided having to deal with a completely new interface and could build further on Teams, Outlook and the tools people already knew, It is Eiksund.
That the workaround was known to the users was one thing. At least as important was that the information was given a clear place.
Now all documents have a natural place where they belong. There is a clear logic to the way they are organised, which makes it much easier to find them again. They can be linked to a company or a project, or stored as reference documentation.
For Eiksund, it was important that the system would make it easier to share information in practice.
It is easy to say that employees should share more. If that just means more emails and more people cc'd, then you end up with even more noise and less overview. You have to give them a system where the information has a natural place.
Joint structure brings sales and technical together
Westing has both commercial sales representatives and technical inspectors. They meet different people out at the customer's premises and contribute different expertise. Good interaction between the roles is crucial when a project is to be followed up and quality assured.
We have weekly meetings where we go through project lists and lead lists. This means that not just one person holds the information. It becomes an interactive process where several people can contribute towards both projects and leads., says Eiksund.
In the project workspace in Business Online, each project is assigned both a sales manager and a technical manager. Both work with the same information.
The sales team and the technical team are much more successful at working as one team now. They have a shared platform to work in.
She also notices that her capacity has increased.
Not because we work more, but because we work more structured. We spend less time searching, and there is less risk of things falling between the stools or remaining with individuals.
From scattered information to proactive sales work
As part of its sales efforts, Westing uses a ship register that provides an overview of which paint systems the vessels have and when they are due for dry-docking. Previously, this information was scattered across Excel, emails and individuals. This made it more difficult to plan sales efforts and follow up with customers in advance.
Now the vessels are gathered in a ship register in Business Online, linked to the correct customer and project. The salespeople can set up alerts before the next docking and follow up with the customer in good time.
For example, we can receive an alert six months before a ship is due to go into dry dock. Then the salesperson knows we need to be on the ball and reach out to the customer. The ship register enables us to plan and work systematically with customer follow-up in a completely different way, It is Eiksund.
From scattered information to proactive sales work
Now that Westing is scaling up its sales organisation to capitalise on new market opportunities, the structure of Business Online is already in place.
New employees can find customer and project history themselves, follow a shared way of working, and spend more of their time on customers and sales-oriented work. They are less dependent on finding the right colleague or asking someone to forward an old email.
It is incredibly much easier to be a new employee at Westing today. People get up to speed much faster and can spend their time on customer work instead of searching for information. We are no longer dependent on individuals' notebooks, It is Eiksund.
It also makes the manager’s job easier. Eiksund can monitor the projects, see what’s going on, and establish routines based on a common way of working.
For Westing, the aim was to get the company organised before the growing pains set in. Now they can continue to build the sales organisation on the basis of a structure that is already in place and works in practice.
Experience has made Agathe Teige Eiksund clear on what other growth companies should prioritise.
My advice to other growing businesses? Get your structure in place and move away from relying on individuals towards a system – from individual ways of working to a single, shared way of working.
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