Case study
UST helped European HVACR company transform omnichannel customer experience
OUR CLIENT
Founded several decades ago, this company has become one of Europe's leading heating and ventilation products and services distributors. With dozens of branch locations and distribution centers, the company employs several hundred people and generates nearly $100 million in revenue annually.
THE CHALLENGE
Disparate application ecosystem prevented omnichannel strategy
Company leaders set a strategic goal to become an omnichannel, data-driven wholesale distributor of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVACR) products and services. However, they hit several snags as the IT team worked to provide its retail customers with a more seamless, integrated omnichannel shopping experience. The siloed applications were challenging to integrate, which made IT support and maintenance difficult. Also, the separate data repositories prevented the company from making reliable, data-driven decisions.
THE TRANSFORMATION
Robust digital transformation streamlined applications and processes
UST led a digital transformation effort using OutSystems, a low-code development platform designed to create omnichannel enterprise applications. The projects included:
- Paperless order management—By consolidating customer orders across all branch locations and digitizing paper-based processes, the company streamlined ordering processes, simplified records and data management, and reduced employee workloads.
- An E-commerce mobile app—This new app-enabled the company’s 11,000 retailer customers to place and manage orders from a phone or tablet, a key element of the omnichannel strategy.
- A price calculation engine—It's designed to compute prices based on a range of parameters and thresholds, giving sales reps flexibility to offer accurate product pricing according to specific criteria.
- An after-sales service application—It standardized processes for after-sales service and support, which improved internal processes and provided more cohesive customer experiences.
- A product troubleshooting system—Designed as a comprehensive, searchable product knowledge repository, the application consolidated error codes, brand-specific solutions, and expert articles to help installers and service technicians resolve issues quickly.
- A supplier portal—This application automated and consolidated supplier activities into a single application, streamlining purchase order confirmations, email notifications, exception handling, available-to-promise fulfillment agreements, and KPI monitoring.
- A CRM system transformation—After struggling with legacy system constraints, inconsistent processes, and data issues, UST deployed tailored solutions with rigorous business rules and audited data in the company’s Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM solution to facilitate collaboration and streamline processes for things like price quotes, vendor and customer onboarding, and logistics.
- An EDI solution—To manage data more efficiently across applications, this solution enabled digital orders, streamlined transaction processing, improved data quality, and gave customers better visibility into their account information.
- An integrated application landscape— By implementing an enterprise service layer, the company could rapidly deploy new features and functionality with more scalable development and efficient code reuse.
THE IMPACT
Omnichannel strategy brought to fruition
With this digital transformation effort—that included more than 30 projects over the last five years—the company:
- Enhanced retailer customer experiences with omnichannel capabilities across physical stores, the company website, and a mobile app.
- Implemented new, automated services to streamline pricing, supplier processes, installations, and after-sales support.
- Eliminated paper-based processes in branch offices.
- Improved processes and data management capabilities to bolster business insights.
- Integrated legacy and modern, cloud-based systems to reduce time to market for new products, services, and application functionality.