Fashion, but not the old-fashioned way
Digitalization at Nooteboom Textiles.
- Industry: Textiles
- Entry: 2018
At Egeria we recognize the potential of digitalization. In fact, we embrace digitalization as a means to create value through our in-house Digital Director, Menno van de Waterbeemd. In this often specialized and untransparent area of doing business, we support companies with:
- a clear assessment of the Digital Value Potential together with the investment team and management team of a portfolio company
- execution of an ambitious and pragmatic digitalization plan
- embedding new ways of working in the organization for the coming years
Digitalization according to Egeria
As there is no uniform acceptance of the definition of ‘digitalization’ within companies, we have created our own framework that depicts how we view digitalization.
The outer layer depicts the benefits of digitalization (where we want to go), where the inner core represents the underlying foundation that needs to be present in order to become customer-centric, data-driven and technically enabled in your operations. There is a constant dynamic between people (employees or customers), systems (internal or external) and processes that we seek to steer towards the three end states of digitalization.
Digitalization journey of Nooteboom
At Nooteboom Textiles, a wholesaler in quality fabrics since 1852 and now the largest in Western Europe, we recognized the potential of a more digital-enabled way of working and interacting with customers. In our collective view, as traditionally a conservative and analogue industry, the textiles market was ready for some digital impulses with regard to the use of data and customer engagement. The strategic goal for Nooteboom is to be the no.1 textiles wholesaler in Europe through the widest assortment, competitive prices and best service. Over a period of 9 months, Menno was closely involved with the Nooteboom organization, effectively as part of the Nooteboom team, to help kickstart Nooteboom’s digitalization. Here is how we went about it:
Firstly, we performed a Quick Scan to assess the Digital Value Potential. Although having a strong IT backbone and an experienced management team, factors holding back further digitalization included a lack of knowledge in the digital domain of management, a maze of consultants and tools that presented themselves as silver bullets, and limited process discipline and governance in the IT backbone.
Secondly, we defined the Digital Roadmap for Nooteboom with three clear priorities:
- Setting up and running efficient B2B commerce operations
- Enabling customer centricity
- Becoming data driven
Third, we started executing rapidly, building the team, constantly managing change in the organization and with key customers, and realizing quick results. Through intense collaboration and an open dialogue between the management team, the Nooteboom digital team and Egeria, we managed to make substantial progress in a short period of time.
Facts & figures
+5%
Monthly website visits
+86%
Increase in average order value
+73%
Sales growth Q1 2020 vs Q1 2019
The results
The team has put in place the foundation on which the organization can grow in the coming years and it aims to capitalize on its digital building blocks in the years to come. First results on the three priorities:
- New e-commerce platform on Shopify and integrated the Nooteboom customer portal that enables customers to track orders, get insight in relevant financial, order and product data, and download sales-supporting materials
- NPS monitoring as a main driver for customer satisfaction, in particular for the order desk as the primary point of contact for customers
- Implementation of Power BI dashboards, improving discussions and decision-making based on real-time data in both purchasing, operational and commercial processes