profine: B2B web shop, customer portal, and marketplace for window construction in 10 countries
ECOPLAN builds and supports the B2B web shop and customer portal for profine, one of the world's leading manufacturers of plastic profiles for windows and entrance doors. The solution runs in 10 countries, includes around 80,000 products, and is directly integrated with SAP ECC. After the go-live in Germany in 2023, eight more countries followed in just nine months.
10
Countries in the rollout
9
Months for 8 more countries
80,000
own products plus third-party ranges
3
Brands: KBE, Kömmerling, TROCAL
Key facts at a glance
Customer
profine GmbH, Pirmasens
Industry
Construction, plastic profiles for window and door systems, PVC sheets
Brands
KBE, Kömmerling, TROCAL
Website
www.profine-group.com
ECOPLAN customer since
2022
Go-live
Germany 2023
Rollout
8 more countries in 9 months, 10 countries in total
Products
Around 80,000 own products plus third-party ranges for the window trade
Solutions
B2B web shop, customer portal, marketplace for the window trade
ERP
SAP ECC 6.0
Other systems
PIM Contentserv, CRM SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud, SAP middleware
About profine
profine GmbH, headquartered in Pirmasens, is one of the world's leading manufacturers of plastic profiles for windows and entrance doors, privacy screening systems, and PVC sheets. With the brands KBE, Kömmerling, and TROCAL, profine delivers to more than 100 countries and employs around 3,200 people. Its customers are primarily window builders and dealers.
Starting situation
For many years, profine used an online shop based on an SAP add-on module. It no longer met requirements, and support for the solution was also discontinued. A first attempt with a B2C-oriented shop solution failed: the complex B2B requirements could be implemented neither fast enough nor within the planned budget.
Accordingly, concerns about the SAP integration, on which previous service providers had failed, were considerable.
Why ECOPLAN
profine chose ECOPLAN because of its experience with manufacturers and industrial companies and above all because of its SAP expertise. ECOPLAN consistently relies on standard functions and limits custom development to what is necessary. This keeps the solution efficient to operate and easy to maintain.
Approach and rollout
ECOPLAN first implemented the German shop, which went live in 2023 after just a few months. After that, each additional country was taken live within a few weeks, eight countries in nine months in total.
Integration
The solution is directly integrated with SAP ECC 6.0. Prices and availability come from SAP at runtime. ECOPLAN passes all shopping cart details to SAP via Sales Order Simulate and creates the order via Sales Order Create.
This lets profine keep using the processes already in place in SAP directly, such as determining transport costs and individual customer conditions. Product data comes from the Contentserv PIM, customer and service information from SAP Sales Cloud and SAP Service Cloud.
What was not easy
After the experience with previous service providers, the SAP integration was the biggest uncertainty factor. With ECOPLAN, it was implemented without problems. Product range control is demanding: each country has its own product ranges, both for own products and for third-party ranges.
ECOPLAN orchestrates this through visibility controls per country and sales organization, so each customer sees exactly the product range that applies in their market.
Special features of the solution
Trade-oriented ordering
Window builders think in terms of construction sites and product lines. Special overviews by profile type, profile color, and other attributes make ordering and reordering for a construction site especially easy.
Added value for dealers in the customer portal
Because software for tradespeople often lacks such functions, dealers see order status, delivery status, backorders, order history, and costs transparently at a glance in the customer portal.
Marketplace for the window trade
What began as a pure profile shop has become a marketplace for everything needed in window construction, complemented by third-party ranges such as handles, hinges, and seals. Dealers buy everything in one place, profine creates a unique selling point for itself, and suppliers deepen their collaboration with profine.
Result
With ECOPLAN, profine replaced the outdated shop, after a failed attempt with a B2C solution, with a B2B solution that works directly with SAP, runs in 10 countries, and adds new countries within a few weeks.
Further development
Since go-live, ECOPLAN has been developing the solution further together with profine: rollout to additional countries, trade-oriented ordering functions, dealer overviews in the customer portal, and most recently the expansion into a marketplace for the window trade.
Customer voice
ECOPLAN understands the requirements of a manufacturer and consistently relies on standard functions. As a result, our solution was introduced efficiently and is easy to maintain.
Related topics
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