MURTFELDT, a family business with its headquarters in Dortmund, is a supplier of technical materials. 700 staff members at six production facilities throughout Europe produce high-performance plastics, standardized and personalized parts, and semi-finished products for 10s of thousands of consumers worldwide. Robert Höhner, who is running the company in the fourth generation, has positioned it as “a specialist in a specific niche market” and wants to lead it into a significantly digital future. He explained to an audience of around 50 visitors why his company requires additional digitalization, what potential this opens up and which challenges he and his team have already gotten rid of along the way.
Like in lots of sectors, digital platforms, which make it possible to manage customer queries exceptionally quickly, quickly and instantly, have likewise established themselves in agreement production in the past years. In addition, a brand-new generation of clients increasingly expects producers to have digital circulation channels. That is why MURTFELDT’s management decided to establish a new online store, where clients can automatically obtain quotes and location orders for a wide variety of standardized premade parts. “We can offer up to 90% of our items through the new store,” says Höhner. “For individual elements or unique tasks that we develop and undertake together with our clients, we naturally still have our direct circulation channel in location.” Apart from which, no place near all of MURTFELDT’s clients want to buy online, meaning that the company will continue to provide one-to-one contact as well as individual advice and assistance– and has no strategies to make any lowerings in sales staff.
On the way to a highly incorporated system
To develop the new store with the preferred performances, it was essential first off to open up MURTFELDT’s closed internal system to clients. Tidying up and amalgamating the main IT system with its many isolated solutions and interrupted data streams to the point where the shop was prepared to go took over a year. At the same time, however, Höhner stated that the store is simply among several big digitalization tasks: “Our ultimate vision is an extremely integrated system that lowers intricacy, is scalable, assists in complete data openness and uses a totally automated digital customer user interface.”
Bringing staff on board was essential to the business’s management from the start. Höhner said: “In this respect, we benefit immensely from the trust our staff members have in us. Numerous have actually been with us for years and lots of have actually added to our digitalization projects with an excellent sense of responsibility and their respective competence.” Developing the shop included, for example, prices, shipment times and shipping and product packaging costs, which can now be determined instantly. While doing so, the management group has actually discovered, according to Höhner, that a mix of big, centrally collaborated projects and smaller, rapid successes is an appealing way to inspire people. For instance, the MURTFELDT group has developed its own chatbot for customers and “fed” it with its comprehensive understanding of products. Another significant project together with the shop is automated small-batch production.
Visitors made great usage of the chance during Höhner’s speak with ask concerns and actively contribute to the discussion. Drinks and treats afterwards offered an additional framework for sharing ideas.