Awards
With an annual revenue of more than two billion Swiss francs, SWISS KRONO is a leading manufacturer of wood-based materials for furniture and interior design. This makes the company a premium partner for sustainable, renewable construction materials. Read below how this global player mastered the increasing demands on digital sales and created an online shop for its customers with support from Unic.
- Customer
- SWISS KRONO Group
- Customer since
- 2020
- Go-Live
- June 2022
- Website
- www.swisskrono.com/ch-de
35.000
Products
5
Active languages
3
Country shops
1
Award from Spryker to Unic, for Customer Excellence at SWISS KRONO
Ideal Customer Journey
Wood-based construction is increasingly popular – and SWISS KRONO is one of the leading manufacturers of wood-based materials for interior design, floors and construction materials. The group offers a wide range of wood-based materials to various different target groups: Their tiered sales model caters first to wholesalers, DIY retailers as well as specialised direct retail partners. The next level includes indirect sales partners who consult and manufacture, such as joiners, carpenters, floor layers, furniture manufacturers, but also architects, interior designers, engineers and real estate investors. The third level includes the actual users of the products, the end customers in companies and private homes.
All these target groups are increasingly looking to research and buy products online. That is why the explicit goal is to create an online shop tailored to the needs of the target groups before, during and after product purchase and to support interested parties on their digital customer journey in the best possible way.
The Challenge: Create a Digital Experience for Wood-based Materials
How do you create a digital experience for the high-quality wood-based materials made by SWISS KRONO? SWISS KRONO wants to offer an intuitive, state-of-the-art shopping and information platform to the various different target groups. There are several aspects to consider:
Visual and textual product information provides users with an online product experience that inspires them to buy.
Additional helpful features (such as a calculator, configuration tool, simulator and samples) support the selection process.
Information on the actual order process, in particular on product availability, delivery times and pricing is up-to-date and supports just-in-time delivery processes.
To master the challenges, SWISS KRONO first developed a vision on how the entire company – from production to marketing, sales and customer service – could harness digital tools to increase the customer benefit, launch new products faster and optimise sales processes.
https://www.unic.com/en/projekte/swiss-krono-pim
The logical next step was to launch the SWISS KRONO online shop based on e-commerce platform Spryker Cloud Commerce OS.
E-commerce: Agile, Integrated, Customer-centric
SWISS KRONO has established management processes that allow the group to react flexibly to changes in the market and adaptations of the product portfolio. This ensures a quick response to future changes in the purchasing and information gathering behaviour of the target groups, for instance amongst skilled tradespeople.
This goal shapes the application landscape: The selected e-commerce platform Spryker Cloud Commerce OS has a modular setup, uses an expandable frontend for digital customer interaction and is perfectly suited for the integrated interaction with the ERP and PIM systems.
To SWISS KRONO, Customer-centric means considering many different needs. The various target groups mentioned above have different roles when buying wood-based materials, such as product designers, purchasers, architects or commercial decision-makers. These roles also need to be taken into account in the concept for the solution.
Key Requirements for the Solution Design at a Glance:
The customer portal is aligned rigorously with the demands and needs of the target and user groups. First and foremost, customers must receive optimal digital support in the context of their specific roles.
The order process goes beyond a mere sales transaction: Various detailed information on the product, calculation tools and customer-specific price lists and features as well as an overview of the purchase history are additional examples of what makes the integrated customer portal successful.
Leveraging automation potentials: Processes in product information management for the gathering, enrichment and distribution of all product data were optimised and streamlined to make them fit for the future. The implemented order process unlocks automation potential for the company through the seamless integration of e-commerce (Spryker Cloud Commerce OS) and ERP (SAP S/4HANA) systems. This helps mitigate business risks such as the increasing talent shortage and makes for robust business processes.
Consistent Digitalisation Along the Customer Journey and the Product Lifecycle
SWISS KRONO and Unic design digital solutions with a consistent focus on the customer’s needs, and this is reflected even in the depths of the IT architecture. Since these needs and the digital information gathering and shopping behaviour change over time, SWISS KRONO was keen on creating a modular and flexibly adaptable information systems landscape. Thanks to the modular setup, future needs for digital services to create additional value for customers can be integrated flexibly.
High-quality product information is available efficiently and effectively to digital marketing, e-commerce and service processes along the entire customer journey. This creates a digital environment that incentivises customers to buy – before, during and after the actual purchase.
Access to New Online Shop Through a Central Customer Login
The login is required to manage employees involved in purchasing and other stakeholders within the customer organisation as well as their roles and rights. When logged in, they also have access to all features surrounding the research and selection of suitable products, the actual order process and several other value-adding digital services. The features include:
A powerful, intuitive product search with filters flanked by an integrated decor database makes the required materials easy to find.
A product detail view provides extensive information on the product, supplemented by image and media files as well as specific certificates.
Bookmark lists to save products and well-structured shopping carts to facilitate the order process.
Information on the availability of the products is displayed at a glance, using a well-established traffic light system. Hassle-free procurement of products, a simple checkout process, repeat orders, transparent order history and the option to manage shipping addresses make the customers’ lives easier and help create a seamless customer experience surrounding the core part of the e-commerce solution.
Upon request, customer-specific price lists can be generated and exported as CSV files for further processing in the customer’s organisation. To quote a customer: “This is a big step, and this approach is an enormous help with data management.”
Video tutorials help customers familiarise themselves with the new system, providing helpful tips to make placing and managing orders even easier:
What Role Does Unic Play at SWISS KRONO During Day-to-day Operations?
Unic is a sparring partner for the digital transformation. The new SWISS KRONO customer portal comes with many changes in the operational and organisational structure. Targeted and efficient change management will make the difference between failure and success:
Digital solutions and the people working with them are an integral part of a project such as this one. Unic actively supports this successful digital transformation, ensuring continual and close dialogue between specialists in marketing, sales and IT. We have created a digital organisation to provide group-wide support for the new digital solutions. During day-to-day operations, Unic supports SWISS KRONO with many different tasks, ranging from implementation to integration and operation of the application systems:
Implementation with Spryker Cloud Commerce OS
Design of the product data model and its implementation with Akeneo Product Cloud
Integration of the system for Digital Asset Management (Tessa DAM)
Integration of the S/4HANA ERP system
Integration of user management services via SAP Customer Data Cloud (CDC)
As part of our continual quality management, Unic ensures the reliable operation of the solution components created by us and is available instantly should any problems occur.
Fabian Kölliker, Head of Marketing at SWISS KRONO, is delighted with the improvements:
The digital sales opportunities that come with the online shop help lighten the workload of our internal sales department and free up the experts to focus on tricky cases and special requests. The flexible platform makes us a reliable partner for our customers. The improvements to the customer experience earned us a lot of praise – and we will keep working on it.
Fabian Kölliker, Head of Marketing at SWISS KRONO
Since the launch of the online shop for the Swiss market, there have been successful roll-outs in Germany and Poland, and more countries are in the pipeline.
Would you also like to ramp up your e-commerce and wow your customers with innovative services and tangible improvements in efficiency and ease of use? Get in touch! We will be happy to help.
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