#Neustart: For the launch of the new marketing and sales process, Franke assembled a specialist team of employees from different departments as well as external specialists from universities and consulting firms.
Franke is positioning itself for the future with a clear strategic focus and significant investments. Having defined, digitally mapped processes not only makes the company more effective and agile internally, but also makes it fit for customers’ new requirements and expectations.
When ten new IT tools were introduced at Franke in 2019 as part of a major digitalisation offensive, one of them changed the future of the way all departments work together: Franke WIKI, an integrated process, quality and knowledge management system. Like its namesake Wikipedia, the platform functions in a decentralised manner with the intensive involvement of all employees. With it, they can initiate, discuss and even implement change processes. Once the process or work instruction is given the goahead in a release process, the new feature can be used straight away. Plus, Franke WIKI gives all Franke employees a fast and easily accessible knowledge database in which the company’s entire expertise is always kept up to date.
After a test phase and numerous workshops and training courses for all users, Franke WIKI went live in the autumn of 2019. Since then, it has ensured not only stable processes with clear responsibilities and collaborative company management, but also far more agility thanks to shorter search and enquiry times – as well as making a significant contribution to paperless working.
Two years later, the start of a change process that completely reorganises the processes of acquiring and supporting customers under the motto #Neustart guaranteed significantly more efficiency in sales. The basis for this is a clear and changed distribution of roles between Marketing, Internal Sales and Field Sales, as well as the digital, end-to-end networking of these departments. The concept recognises that, in addition to customers who expect personalised customer service, there are also increasing numbers of customers who get their information about products and suppliers from online sources. #Neustart makes it possible to divide target groups into predefined segments and provide them with customised measures and packages – and in some segments this is a largely automated and digital process.
An efficient and tailor-made customer relationship management (CRM) system is indispensable for this. Franke began introducing CRM in 2022 and gradually networked it with other digital tools in the company. At the end of this extensive transformation process, Franke will be able to manage potential and existing customers in a much more efficient, personalised, agile and therefore future-proof manner. //