Branche: Trade & Logistics
Swiss food wholesaler Bianchi guarantees shortest delivery times. IT increasingly becomes a success factor as it helps to organize internal and external processes in an efficient and cost-effective manner. It also supports the staff in optimally serving the customers, who are always at the center of Bianchi’s attention.
“We consider ourselves to be a large enterprise with the service of a small boutique,” says IT manager Markus Ulrich. Bianchi does everything it takes to entirely satisfy its about 9,000 demanding customers. The customers can choose from a range of 3,500 items of fish, seafood, poultry, meat and specialties from all over the world and place their orders by e-mail, fax and telephone. Bianchi guarantees the shortest response times even for small order quantities: “If you place your order by 4 a.m., you will receive your goods that very same day. Some customers even receive deliveries twice a day.”
Customer files directly on-screen
The 35 members of the sales staff, all of which are learned cooks, are supported by the Telephone Sales module of the CSB-System. When a call comes in, the ERP software displays all key data, for example
- Customer name
- Allocated salesperson
- Language
- Location
- Phone number
This information is displayed simultaneously on all monitors of the staff in the sales department: “Our salespeople immediately see when one of their customers is calling. On average, it takes only 2.8 seconds until the caller is connected to the assigned salesperson,” Ulrich explains. In addition, the system was set up so that every customer will be contacted at specified times.
As a result, all customers get optimum service. With a total of 2,000 phone calls per day, it is not only about the mere entry of orders: “Our staff also offers advice,” says Ulrich. For example, when an item is not available on stock and the customer asks for alternative product suggestions. When placing their orders, customers gladly make use of the vast knowledge within the Bianchi team with regard to product features, preparation options and recipes.
Route planning cuts logistics costs
After input of the orders into the system, picking of the ordered items starts. Every day, 30 tons of goods from all around the world are put together customer specifically and loaded onto refrigerated trucks. With its own fleet of 100 modern refrigerated vans, Bianchi delivers to hotels, restaurants and multiunit restaurants, hospitals, retailers and caterers throughout Switzerland. Efficient planning is essential for optimal loading of the vehicles. “In order to make it to the customer at the right time and with the right products, we need of course an IT solution that does the optimal route planning for us,” Ulrich explains. “We use the route planning function integrated in the CSB-System for this purpose. It helps us achieve maximum capacity utilization on our routes. As a result, we save logistics costs and all customers receive their ordered goods on time.”
Two-hour time saving in archiving
For optimum handling of delivery notes, Bianchi uses the document management system in the CSB-System. At the head office in Zufikon, the delivery notes signed by the customers are scanned and then sorted and archived automatically by means of barcode recognition. Allocation and indexing are carried out in the background. The benefit of this solution: All delivery notes and documents are available in digital format within the entire process, at any time and at all required places, so they can be easily accessed in just a few seconds. This ensures transparency and saves valuable time and costs, for example for verifying quantity, quality or price. Markus Ulrich: “Today, our employees no longer need to search laboriously in ring binders to find the documents. With a total of 1,500 delivery notes per day, this means we can save two hours every day. ”
In view of this positive experience, the solution has recently been extended and optimized so now the entire archiving process is handled electronically. Bianchi’s customers still receive their delivery notes on paper, but the receipt of the is confirmed on a digital delivery note on a MDC device and then sent online to the head office for archiving and further processing. Scanning delivery notes is therefore a thing of the past, which means another enormous efficiency increase for Bianchi.
