Cost savings: Half a million euros per year

More time for customer service and dealing with routine tasks: achieved at Hansgrohe SE in Schiltach through automated order processing. The Hansgrohe Group is with its brands Axor and hansgrohe and its innovative, premium-quality design-oriented products a leading supplier to the bathroom and kitchen industry with more than 4800 employees at around 34 distribution centres and over 21 sales offices across the world. 280,000 orders are automatically processed in SAP on an annual basis, thanks to tangro. Order processing is standard across their global network and the processing time for fax and email orders is approximately halved. "Thanks to automated order processes, we are able to save two euros per document, which equates to an average of half a million euros per year," is what Johannes Schmelzle, Project Lead in Hansgrohe, estimates the economic success of automation to be.

The Hansgrohe Group receives around 930,000 orders per year. 70% of the orders come in via EDI and the company's own customer portal. 30% of the orders, however, still arrive via fax or email and must first be entered so that they can be posted in SAP. Previously, the faxes were taken off the machine, separated, distributed and finally typed up. Now this entire process is electronic. All orders - whether they come in via post or fax - are forwarded to tangro via mail. The software automatically recognises the customers and contents, such as material and quantities, and fills in the corresponding fields in the processing screen. The order can then been posted through tangro directly in SAP. "For us, tangro is the perfect entry tool, with an incredibly impressive customer recognition: over 90%," explains Johannes Schmelzle.

tangro not only recognises the ordering party, but is also able to allocate the correct sales group and responsible administrator. Questions requiring clarification are then forwarded accordingly - together with the order and the link to the tangro document. The complete overview of all processes can be found in tangro OM. Here, with a single glance, the user can see which document has been forwarded and each order's current status. Posted orders are also stored electronically, which furthermore guarantees full transparency. In addition to this, the complete email correspondence with the customer is also archived.

It took just four weeks for the solution to be fully installed. For the initial system set-up, only a few days were actually required. "tangro enables very quick and smooth implementation," Johannes Schmelzle resumes. This successful start simultaneously fulfilled all the prerequisites for the roll-out in the remaining subsidiaries and sales organisations. The internationalisation followed in rapid succession. The Hansgrohe Group now uses tangro in over 20 countries on four continents and in ten different languages. For example, tangro has also been implemented in China and Japan and functions just as smoothly there, despite the different alphabets. "tangro roll-out is incredibly easy. Customising only takes about four hours; moreover, the authorisation concept can also be adopted."

Alongside the international roll-out, digitalisation in sales was also rounded off. This now means that orders that are added to the CRM system by the external sales force can also be processed automatically. This requires no interface between CRM and SAP. The orders are forwarded to tangro in the background and can be posted fully automatically. In the meantime, quotations are now also entered electronically with tangro. Based on certain parameters, the software automatically recognises whether incoming documents are quotations or orders, and pulls the correct learned data from SAP. This is how globally standardised, uniform processes, and the ensuing increased process safety, have been achieved at the Hansgrohe Group.

At the same time, digitalisation has enabled completely new possibilities for analysis of procedures. tangro determines various KPIs around order processing, including document throughput, and the number of processed, posted and still open documents. "The evaluation features of tangro allow us to see how the work processes in the individual countries actually transpire and where there is potential for optimisation."