Hero Gastronomique digitalizes sales processes with valantic

Hero Gastronomique supplies catering establishments throughout Switzerland – from retirement homes to restaurants – via wholesalers. At the same time, the company relies on direct contact: The company’s own sales force visits customers on site, provides personal advice and forms an important bridge between product and practice.

Technically, however, the processes were no longer up to the task. Price lists were created manually in Excel, the existing app for the sales force could only be used on Windows devices and could only be maintained and further developed with a great deal of effort. Media disruptions, high maintenance costs and a lack of expandability characterized everyday life in the office and in the field.

valantic has been supporting Hero Gastronomique as a digitalization partner for several years – for example, in the field of Hero Gastro services. Based on an existing Pimcore platform, a scalable solution has now been developed that relieves the burden on both sides. The result is two applications with a shared database: a web app for multi-level price calculation in the back office and a modern sales app for the sales force – device-independent, user-friendly and directly integrated with SAP.

Calculating prices for entire purchasing groups used to be a real time waster. Back office staff needed four to eight hours to manually prepare price lists in Excel – including individual discounts and product range variants. The complexity increased with each price round and the maintenance effort grew.

Today, this is much more efficient. In the new web app, the back office selects the desired customer and the relevant product groups. The price lists are prepared within minutes and generated as a PDF or Excel file with a click – differentiated by wholesaler and end customer.

The pricing logic is based on SAP data and discount groups are maintained centrally in Pimcore. Customer-specific discounts can be flexibly adapted as required.

What used to take half a day to a whole working day can now be completed in under an hour. Processes are standardized and the susceptibility to errors has been significantly reduced. The time saved is 75-80 percent.

Hero Gastronomique’s sales force was looking for more flexibility. The previous solution was functional, but technically limited: Only usable on Windows devices, difficult to expand and not ideally adaptable to new requirements.

Together with valantic, the existing application was further developed into a modern progressive web app. It works on all devices, can be used offline and brings advice to where it takes place – directly to the customer.

Both applications are based on Pimcore as the central PIM system. SAP ERP and CRM provide product, price and customer data, supplemented by GS1 catalog information, which is enriched in a structured manner in Pimcore. The interfaces are connected with high performance and the modular architecture creates scope for future expansions. Data is maintained centrally once and is available consistently across all channels.

• In the back office: price lists are now produced four to eight times faster
• In the field: advice becomes more flexible, visual and customer-friendly
• For everyone: less manual maintenance, higher data quality, consistent user experience

What the team particularly appreciates: Both tools were developed together with the users. Travel companions, feedback rounds and co-creation ensured a high level of acceptance – and that the solutions really help in everyday life.

The two sales apps are not only standalone solutions, but also form a stable foundation for further digital developments. The underlying architecture offers scope for additional functions and integrations – many ideas for this already exist. The goal remains to continuously improve the sales experience and further simplify processes in both internal and external sales.