CASE STUDY – Cooperation KNAUF
and MaPS System
How KNAUF managed to double efficiency with MaPS
System
ABOUT KNAUF
Profile: KNAUF is a multinational, German company founded in 1932.
The company produces construction material as well as insulation products
Annual TO: 6.3 Billion € (2013)
Internal Staff: 26.000 employees
Scope of Operations: The KNAUF Group is an internationally operating
family company headquartered in the Franconia city of Iphofen with
subsidiaries
in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Australia, North and South America.
KNAUF is the world leader on the polystyrene market and #3 on
plasterboards (#1 in Europe).
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Short Project Description
Caroline Harmant, Director of Marketing at KNAUF, chose MaPS System to develop a web service
that would connect the KNAUF website, mobile application, CRM system (Customer Relationship
Management) to enhance the communication between these platforms. Repercussions of the prior
state regularly resulted in information inefficiencies based on missing workflow processes.
"MaPS System was an important tool for KNAUF’s global strategy and they needed a solution that
could grow with their growth."
MaPS System helped KNAUF establish automated workflows by hosting a web service between the
previously unconnected systems consisting of the website (http://www.knauf-batiment.fr/), their new
mobile application (iKNAUF), their CRM system (Customer Relationship Management). There was a
common need for a unique point of reference throughout the company, which would enable a more
effective and standardized way of communication.
“The goal of this partnership between KNAUF and MaPS System was the
establishment of workflows around KNAUF’s different systems”
KNAUF’s
prior
challenges
concerned
a
missing
process
for
cross-
departmental communication and tedious manual tasks for data maintenance
“We had already been working with MaPS System since 2009, using their MDM (Master Data
Management) system as a data repository”, says Caroline.
KNAUF’s old website was designed as a platform for product descriptions with corresponding media
files. The former way of maintaining these was through two separate entities - ingenieurs and
Marketing - who worked independently of another. The expertized KNAUF ingenieurs developed
highly technical documentation about the products - generated in MaPS System - out of which the
Marketing department derived more client-friendly information that was uploaded to the website.
Having no standard way of communication between these two entities, newly developed products or
features were not directly reported to Marketing by the ingenieurs, causing delays in updating this
product information - especially leading to missing information and inconsistencies for the end user
visiting one of their platforms.
Another impediment was, that with this time-intensive, manual maintenance, the product
information was not synchronized within MaPS System’s MDM repository. Here, merely the titles of all
products had been listed without the description created by Marketing. Additionally, the newly
developed mobile application remained unaffected by changes on the website as well, although the
application exactly reflected the content of the website.
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Through KNAUF’s online platform, clients can connect to the website and through the mobile
application (iKNAUF), where they enter their personnel details or can demand further product
information in form of catalogues, etc. MaPS System discovered, that this client information had not
been connected to the CRM: feeds of registered website or mobile clients needed to be added
manually to the CRM. At that time, KNAUF had already accumulated approximately 50 000 clients.
The workflow that KNAUF’s organization had been missing included a way to
automatically transfer data and synchronize it in all necessary places
“Our organization had been seeking to improve the cross-departmental workflow and we wanted an
immediate and efficient way to enrich or add products and innovative functions that would enable
customers to find product updates directly when released in the market.”
To begin with, KNAUF needed a way to recover and keep the existing product and client
databases and transfer them into one repository - while connecting to the other platforms. For this, it
was necessary to develop a new, improved website that would connect to MaPS System’s MDM and
establish this as the unique point of reference for all product information.
“It was essential for us to recover the product data from the old website to store
them in the MDM to be able to revise, structure and contextualize it for our web
and mobile appearances”
All client data had to be transferred from the iKNAUF website to the CRM system they used. “Together
with MaPS System, we developed a connection between our website, our mobile app and our CRM
system. MaPS System now synchronizes all three platforms and updates all client information from the
online login and displays them in real-time”, according to Caroline.
As a common data management objective, MaPS System created an automated workflow
defining clear working procedures, helping to define roles and responsibilities throughout the
respective company departments. This workflow was hosted by MaPS System via a web service,
connecting the data from MaPS System’s MDM to their website, mobile application and CRM, while
MaPS System synchronizes all platforms.
Together with MaPS System, a process was created that now provides geotargeted services to clients
As a supplementary feature developed by MaPS System for KNAUF, a connection was created
between the website’s client accounts and the CRM’s client information (containing security guides,
sales manager information, shop addresses, and GPS coordinates). A new functionality was
developed enabling the tracking of each client’s location in order to tailor services to each of them:
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assignment of sales representatives operating in their region, supply of local retailer information
details, etc. In order for this to happen, all cities in France were imported into MaPS System out of the
CRM system, including the GPS coordinates, all KNAUF retailer names, addresses and zip codes. To
coordinate this data with the client’s location, the client’s browser now detects his location (only the
case with an enabled GPS tracker), or the client needs to input his zip code manually. With this
function, MaPS System can match and coordinate the client’s data with the GPS coordinates placed
within MaPS System.
Additionally, it is now possible for KNAUF to select what client information to extract from the
database to e.g. see all clients linked to the KNAUF subsidiaries located in the east of France, of the
past week or days. These needs are natively covered by MaPS System via the Configurator,
Repository and Extractor modules. “This function will especially allow us to be more efficient at our
daily sales business, since we are able to track each customer change and react faster to their sales
requests. A client information update now happens automatically and synchronizes in all the right
spaces.”
KNAUF now even has alerts for regional sales managers, who are informed when a customer in their
area leaves a message via the contact form within his KNAUF account. Furthermore, the technical
support is now able to receive notifications if a client wishes further, and a more detailed product
explanation or function. With the help of KNAUF’s mobile app, the client can also upload pictures of
the product, directly import it into the app, and send it to KNAUF’s technical support (not implemented
anymore).
Results for KNAUF: a more time-efficient process establishment of the internal
organization
Due to a large range of products to be managed and dispersed nature of product storage, product
deficiencies were hardly traceable before using MaPS System. Today, KNAUF has all necessary tools
to dispose of one central overview: it is possible to centrally store, organize, enrich, contextualize
(web, mobile, print, etc.), define and release product information within the MDM system and distribute
it to all relevant platforms.
“Within MaPS System, we also dispose of dashboards delivering useful reports on the state of our
data to ensure high data quality and improve any product inconsistencies. We can make unlimited
changes and have all relevant areas updated and synchronized at the same time for different
opportunity areas including different distribution channels and contexts.”
By connecting all platforms, MaPS System has advanced KNAUF’s organization, and improved their
pace of working. According to Caroline, MaPS System is used on a daily basis across all associated
departments handling critical product and customer data. “We are meanwhile twice as alert towards
client demands!”
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