Giesen Coffee Roasters: "Proud Dutch manufacturers working just a bit differently"

The search for standard production with a unique design

The employees 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.” Even after thirty years of experience, they are still constantly looking for new developments and technologies to implement. This innovation drive has resulted in high-quality machines with all the ingredients to remain presentable as the top brand in the world of coffee roasters.

“Our customers want to design their coffee roasting factory to their own tastes. A lot of time and money is invested in this. Which is why we would like to offer them the possibility to compose their coffee roasters tailored to their own wishes.” In addition to the expansive customization possibilities, Giesen also offers several accessories and services. Customers can choose a Giesen Profiler subscription, to name just one extra. “Giesen Profiler has been developed to automatically record roastings, save them, and replay them. Besides, by setting up triggers, smart roasting profiles can be designed. This technology allows automatic and consistent roasts.”

With these final steps, we have digitalized the entire pre-production process, resulting in very positive results for our competitive position. Offering a unique design resulted in much more complexity in the order-intake and quotation trajectory. Davey explains: “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.”

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

Offering a unique design resulted in much more complexity in the order-intake and quotation trajectory. Davey explains: “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.”

“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.”

In the market, a product configuration tool was desired, which could optimize the internal sales processes. Additionally, this tool had to make the different departments more efficient by connecting them to one another. Through an online search, Giesen found Elfsquad. Through different channels, it quickly became clear that Elfsquad is Exact Online’s preferred supplier in the area of configuration software.

After the first contact, it clicked right away: “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 has been made plug & play. “It was easy to connect the product configurator to our Exact Online environment.” This connection allows products from the ERP system to be live synchronized between Elfsquad and Exact. As a result, configuring is always done according to the latest price and product updates.

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

So the chain integration with Elfsquad was put to work. By integrating Elfsquad into the current IT landscape, we ensured that internal business processes are efficiently designed. No more faulty order intakes because salespeople compose quotations and determine BoMs through a configurator validated by engineers. Engineers can focus on R&D instead of supporting the sales department. And an efficient purchasing policy is realized because of the early insights into customer needs, since salespeople have determined a BOM at an early stage. Eventually, this has led to 30% more efficiency in the internal business processes. Besides, the quotation runtime was reduced by 50%. “These are numbers that confirmed our trust in Elfsquad,” says Davey Giesen.

Sven Pardijs, responsible for Elfsquad’s integration, is very fond of the application’s user-friendliness: “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. Now we are in the process of applying the last design steps and can look back on a fond and successful cooperation.”

A brighter future

Even though Giesen has already made significant strides in internal digitization with Elfsquad, they aim to enhance the customer experience externally by enabling end customers to configure online independently. “We want to elevate the customer experience digitally as we do in our physical location in Ulft,” says Davey Giesen. “With Elfsquad’s showroom functionality, soon, end customers can create their own unique Giesen coffee roaster online, visually, with support from 3D models.”

In addition to their own sales team and end customers, Giesen aims to involve their dealer network to gain more control and offer a uniform sales process through Elfsquad, enabling them to stand out in a competitive market. “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.”