Introduction of SAP Sales Cloud at A&E Gütermann

The traditional company from Gutach im Breisgau, which was founded in 1864, has a comprehensive sewing thread product range and has the right threads for nearly any sewing project, no matter the color and thickness. In addition to high-quality threads for home and hobby needs as well as for the clothing industry, A&E Gütermann also develops and manufactures high-performance and durable industrial threads, such as those needed in the production of airbags for vehicles, aircraft seats or medical protective clothing.

The development and production of innovative thread solutions that withstand high loads and are resistant to acids, alkalis and heat is a key factor for A&E Gütermann’s success story. The company is the only full-fledged producing sewing thread manufacturer in Europe and part of the global textile group Elevate Textiles headquartered in the USA.

An important key for also operating successfully on the market in the future as well are digital, uniform, efficient and transparent business processes in all areas. There is potential for improvement here in the sales department, which until recently worked with an outdated SAP-CRM solution, which no longer meets the requirements of end users in relation to the user experience (UX) and mobile data access. There was above all a need to optimize the lead-to-order process, customer communication, coordination between internal and external sales, as well as sales management and in the area of customer visit planning.

With the introduction and commissioning of the SAP Sales Cloud solution, A&E Gütermann took an important step to digitalize the processes in the sales department and to take them to a new level in terms of transparency and efficiency. This is possible, because sales-relevant data from the lead to the opportunity and customer base to the offer and order receipt is now merged and managed uniformly, consistently and in a high quality in SAP Sales Cloud – keyword ‘single source of truth.’

Positive effects can already be noticed, for example when processing the lead-to-order processes. “The cloud solution from SAP helps us very efficiently in developing interested parties from the opportunity to the order assignment and ensures a clear view of all sales opportunities,” says Steffen Kleissler, Regional Sales Manager Industry & TechTex at A&E Gütermann. This transparency, but also the simple and quick mobile access to data, anywhere, any time and with any end device, contributes significantly to an improved collaboration between the over 130 end users from the internal and external sales service as well as sales management.

It is also extremely important that the sales department today has a clear view of every single sales display (sales equipment) that A&E Gütermann sets up for retail customers, such as fabric and sewing machine businesses or at warehouses. “The sales displays, which are usually complex and costly to produce and equip, are our property and are a considerable asset,“ explains Markus Lang, Regional Sales Manager Consumer Central + Eastern Europe at A&E Gütermann. In SAP Sales Cloud, the sales equipment can be called up and viewed via an additional view of the customer base in real time from the SAP ERP back end.

Individual extensions like this of the SAP Sales Cloud standard features make it easier for the sales department to complete its tasks. Separate views can be used in the sales solution to also directly call up and check invoice conditions with major customers stored in SAP ERP as well as price agreements with industrial customers, including histories. SAP inventory queries are also possible, which are relevant in the industrial sector and show whether and, if yes, in what amount thread solutions requested by customers are currently available.

^{Source Photo: © Gütermann GmbH}

The field sales service in the industrial sector also greatly benefits. They now plan their visit tours and additional visits at short notice as part of a tour easily, quickly and flexibly in the SAP Dynamic Visit Planning add-on. The add-on uses algorithms to calculate the best route, which reduces the number of trips and therefore the costs.

„The algorithm-based tour planning is a real relief for field sales employees, who usually also visit numerous smaller and medium-sized industrial customers. They spend less time on the road at the same time thanks to the route optimization. All in all, this gives them more time for their core tasks, such as (current) customer care or (new) customer acquisition,” explains Steffen Kleissler.

The cloud-based SAP sales solution uses the valid database, which has been created to date, to also create very meaningful analyses and visualizes them clearly. The evaluations provide the parties responsible in sales and management with important starting points to, for example, further improve the processes as part of the lead and opportunity management or quotation and to manage the field sales service even more efficiently.

This basic application was refined step by step and adjusted and expanded according to the individual wishes of the thread manufacturer. The ORBIS experts also established the bidirectional integration and data exchange between SAP Sales Cloud and SAP ERP via the SAP Integration Suite and implemented the initial load of master and transaction data.

Steffen Kleissler summed up the experience positively:

„With the SAP Sales Cloud solution, we are adding more transparency and efficiency to the sales processes, in the retail sector as well as in the industrial and automotive sector. At the same time, it offers the necessary flexibility for mapping our complex individual process requirements.”

Steffen Kleissler, Regional Sales Manager Industry & TechTex at A&E Gütermann

And that’s not all. The plan for the future is to utilize the marketing features in SAP Sales Cloud much more intensively, for example for campaigns and mailings, and to implement a tailor-made sales reporting.