Giesen Coffee Roasters: Proud Dutch Manufacturer Who Cut Quotation Time in Half

Standard Production With a Unique Design

The people at Giesen are described as proud Dutch manufacturers working just a bit differently. "We at Giesen Coffee Roasters combine Dutch craftsmanship with unique design. As a collective, we strive to provide customers with a coffee roaster with which they can roast coffee beans with more control. And it is a privilege to be able to do this."

Their customers want to design their coffee roasting factory to their own tastes, with significant time and money invested in the result. Giesen offers extensive customization possibilities alongside accessories and services, including the Giesen Profiler subscription. "Giesen Profiler has been developed to automatically record roastings, save them, and replay them. By setting up triggers, smart roasting profiles can be designed, allowing automatic and consistent roasts."

That level of customer specificity is Giesen's competitive advantage. But as product complexity grew, so did the pressure on the sales and order intake process. "Composing quotations cost us a lot of time, so we went on a search for a way to design this in a more efficient manner. Additionally, it was our goal to provide a uniform method of work for both our internal and external salespeople."

When Unique Design Creates Complexity in Every Quote

"To remain one step ahead of our competitors and enhance our competitive position, we had to be able to compose customer-specific quotations both quickly and flawlessly and use this to manage our production process. These were trends we observed in the manufacturing industry that we wanted to adjust to in a clever way. To realize this, we had to digitize our pre-production processes."

Giesen needed a product configuration tool that could optimize internal sales processes and connect different departments to one another. Through an online search, they found Elfsquad, and quickly discovered it was Exact Online's preferred supplier in the area of configuration software.

After the first contact, it clicked immediately. "At first glance, Elfsquad was able to quote faster and more efficiently. However, the extra possibilities to further digitize the organization are what convinced us to go on board with Elfsquad. By also automating the entire pre-production process, the desired growth can be facilitated in an efficient way."

Integrating Elfsquad With the IT Landscape

Because of the strong partnership between Elfsquad and Exact, the connection was plug and play. "It was easy to connect the product configurator to our Exact Online environment." Products from the ERP system are live synchronized between Elfsquad and Exact, so every configuration is always based on the latest prices and product updates.

Giesen's future CRM system is also being fully integrated with Elfsquad. "Because of the extensive API documentation, we expect this to be realized easily and quickly."

The chain integration put the entire process in order. No more faulty order intakes. Sales teams compose quotations and determine BOMs through an engineer-validated configurator. Engineers focus on R&D instead of supporting sales. And an efficient purchasing policy is made possible because salespeople determine a BOM at an early stage, providing early insight into customer needs. The result: 30% more efficiency in internal business processes and a 50% reduction in quotation runtime. "These are numbers that confirmed our trust in Elfsquad," says Davey Giesen.

Sven Pardijs, responsible for Elfsquad's integration, reflects on the process: "We have been able to design the application ourselves, based on our way of working and tempo. As a result, changes are easily implemented, and results are visible quickly. Additionally, Elfsquad provides good support, offering solutions for the most diverse of obstacles."

"With these final steps, we have digitalized the entire pre-production process, resulting in very positive results for our competitive position."

Looking Ahead: Dealers and End Customers Configuring Online

Even with the significant progress already made, Giesen is not done. Their next step is enabling end customers to configure their own unique coffee roaster online, visually, with 3D models through Elfsquad's showroom functionality. "We want to elevate the customer experience digitally as we do in our physical location in Ulft."

Beyond their own sales team, Giesen also aims to bring their dealer network into the system. "Ideally, dealers can generate their own quotations with customized prices and currencies through Elfsquad, ensuring they can configure a Giesen coffee roaster confidently and visually. These final steps complete the digitization of the entire pre-production process, resulting in very positive outcomes for our competitive position."