Plättli Ganz

Digital Transformation with a Focus on eCommerce in a dynamic environment

With over 125 years of experience in the building materials industry, Plättli Ganz is a leading provider of ceramics and building envelope products. The company’s modern infrastructure, vehicle fleet, and automated warehouse system ensure smooth, flexible operations, increasingly supported by digital solutions.

After successfully completing two phases of digitalization focusing on ERP and optimizing logistics and processes (with the classic objective of reducing costs), the next comprehensive step, «Digital Transformation», centers on shifting towards the customer — for which diselva was brought on board as a partner.

Impact

Solid strategic decision-making foundations for initiating the right steps to achieve financial business objectives, such as increasing overall revenue and reducing costs through greater resource and process efficiency.

A comprehensive, long-term vision for achieving objectives with a customer-centric focus, including strengthening customer perception in defined segments, tapping into new customer groups, and increasing customer profitability.

What did we do?

With a lean strategic core team from the Ganz Group – including the Chairman of the Board, the CEO, and the process and IT leaders – the topic of Digital Transformation was approached with a pragmatic methodology.

Phase 1 – Analysis

First, the extensive preparatory work was consolidated. This work included studies on eBusiness and webshops, IT and marketing strategies, workshop results, and extensive analyses from a university project.

Based on this foundation, targeted interviews were conducted with the group’s key stakeholders and relevant business units.

The most important findings were assigned to the following focus areas:

Vision of a hybrid service concept
Streamlined processes & master data
New technologies & systems
Digitalization «with focus»
Organizational levels
Cultural transformation

Phase 2 – Target Vision & Transformation

The development of a target vision from a business (external customers and internal employees) and a technology perspective included the following artifacts:

A meta customer journey in process form, along with a visualization across digital and physical touchpoints
Employee processes from marketing, sales, and service to data management and reporting
Impact calculations showing the positive effects of an online shop and the negative effects on total revenue in the coming years without digital support
Business objectives including weighting
Documented system landscape
Functional map (requirement clusters) with an eCommerce focus covering not only immediate needs but also expansion potential for the following years
Development, comparison, and recommendation of four fundamental implementation variants for the Ganz webshop, assessed in terms of processes & technology, vendors, project complexity, costs, risks, and future viability
Project roadmap across different levels and streams, including overarching strategy, data, eCommerce & customer portal, marketing, and infrastructure
Organizational setup for both project management and operational structure, including definition of necessary roles, responsibilities, and estimated time commitments

Why diselva?

A strategic and holistic approach to Digital Transformation – tailored for SMEs

Comprehensive B2B eCommerce expertise – from processes and requirements to data and systems

Effective project management – crucial for involved employees across departments during an upcoming transformation

Key Takeaways

A pragmatic strategic approach is especially beneficial for SMEs – the confidence gained from making decisions on a solid foundation prevents many cost-related issues later on.

To engage all internal stakeholders, strategic preliminary phases are crucial – simply saying «Let’s start operationally with a shop» is no longer sufficient.

«This strategic project with diselva made our diverse questions about digital transformation tangible and clarified them. With our focus now established on the webshop, we have a clear understanding of: What does our customer truly need digitally? What benefits will it bring us? What are the broader impacts on processes and organization? What technology considerations must be taken into account?»