Paulig Customer Story

Industry

Food & Beverage

Company Size

2,000 employees

Sales Revenue

€921 million

Solution

Customer Service

17,000
CUSTOMER ORDERS
<1 MIN
ORDER PROCESSING TIME WITH ESKER

Processing orders is an essential component of doing business, but for companies in the food industry like Paulig that manufacture and distribute perishable items, speed and accuracy in the supply chain is critical. Additionally, the food industry is one of few that remains consistent in growth, and companies within this growing industry are being faced with the challenge of handling increasing order volumes without adding new staff and maintaining employee satisfaction.

As part of its strategy to continuously improve business processes, Paulig’s Belgium-based branch and Tex-Mex brand, Poco Loco sought a global automation solution that could automate non-EDI order entry, handle increasing order volumes and integrate with its Microsoft Dynamics ERP system. Esker’s Order Management automation solution provides Paulig with a strong digital foundation, which has improved the speed and efficiency of its order management process.

Greater Agility and Flexibility

With many customers sending orders via fax and email, Paulig needed a flexible solution to address their unique needs and ordering form templates. The customer service department wanted to handle the orders themselves without input from customers or having to ask customers to adapt their templates. “We were looking for a flexible solution for our customers with order volumes too low to switch to EDI, or who were not interested in moving to EDI,” said Pieter Vandecaveye, Project Manager at Paulig.

Orders received from multiple countries (including Belgium, France and the U.K.) are now electronically processed, managed and archived, streamlining the entire order cycle for everyone involved.

A KEY FACTOR IN OUR DECISION TO WORK WITH ESKER WAS THE MATURITY OF THE COMPANY AND TECHNOLOGY. ESKER’S SOLUTION LOOKED MUCH BETTER AND MET OUR NEEDS MORE THAN ANY OF THE OTHER VENDORS WE HAD SEEN.
PIETER VANDECAVEYE | PROJECT MANAGER

Increasing volume & managing growth

“The goal was to be able to deal with new and increasing orders in the future and to reduce processing time,” said Nathalie Vandeburie, Customer Service Manager at Paulig. After just six months of solution implementation, Paulig is on track to reach its target goal of processing 17,000 annual fax and email orders through Esker, and with AI-driven technology in place, orders are processed faster. “The average time to get an order into our ERP system is very, very low. Some are even entered in less than one minute. It was a lot more in the past,” Vandeburie added.

Improving user & customer experience

Esker’s user-friendly solution and interface were well received by the customer service department and user adoption was almost immediate. “Esker’s Train-the Trainer sessions were very well prepared and executed. And after just two training sessions by our own key users, the whole team was ready to get started,” said Vandeburie. “There were very few hiccups when we started going live, and we received positive feedback from the onset. If they encounter a problem, it can be solved by our key users. We haven’t had to call Esker Support much in the past few months. It’s a nice feeling to know that we can handle it ourselves,” Vandeburie continued.

Today, thanks to automation, staff has more time to manage customer relationships, including addressing customer enquiries, answering customer calls and making calculations. “We wanted an automated digital system where we could easily find all information to facilitate the way we worked. Thanks to electronic archiving, we no longer need paper archiving, and we don’t have to upload the orders in our ERP system,” said Vandeburie “The closets used to be full of paper orders; now they’re empty!”

Facilitating Business Continuity

Being able to easily manage the ordering process during staff holidays or while working remotely has been a great asset to Paulig’s customer service team. “Esker is a great help when staff is on holiday. With all orders in the system, everyone can see what needs to be processed and who needs help, and staff can easily cover for those out of the office,” said Vandeburie. Paulig has maintained business continuity during the pandemic while transitioning to a remote workforce. They continue to be operational and process orders with confidence knowing that every order makes it into Esker’s solution and no orders are lost.

"IT WAS DEFINITELY CONVENIENT HAVING ESKER’S SOLUTION IN PLACE WHEN THE PANDEMIC HIT. WE ARE ABLE TO QUICKLY PROCESS ORDERS ELECTRONICALLY, EVEN FROM HOME. WE NO LONGER NEED TO PRINT OR ARCHIVE ANYTHING. ESKER IS DOING IT FOR US.”
NATHALIE VANDEBURIE | CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER

Collaboration & Support

Project implementation went off without a glitch. “The support we received really made it feel like we had a partner. Esker’s consultant was very competent and knowledgeable. He made sure that any issues were solved and that everything was working fine before our official kick-off. He was 100% invested and really did an amazing job,” said Vandecaveye. The few times Paulig has had to call Esker Support, answers and solutions were provided quickly. “It’s nice that we can rely on the support line Esker has,” Vandeburie added.