Dallmayr Gastronomie Service, LLC
Dallmayr, Heimbs and Azul have long positioned themselves as reliable partners in the catering trade. All the expert knowledge about coffee, tea and drinking chocolate has therefore been brought together in a single sales company - Dallmayr Gastronomie Service GmbH &Co. KG - to offer nationwide customer service.
Another key priority in this context was ensuring that sales representatives had access to comprehensive and up-to-date information. All relevant customer data needed to be available on mobile devices before sales meetings. To this end, the company invested in new hardware—for example, every sales representative was equipped with an iPad—and the existing software had to be updated to meet these new requirements.
The Company: A Tradition of German Delicacies and Coffee
Dallmayr, a long-established company based in Munich, is a German delicatessen with over 300 years of history and has become one of the best-known German coffee brands even beyond the borders of Bavaria.
Over the past 50 years, the coffee business and Dallmayr’s “Vending & Office” vending machine service have grown to become the company’s largest business divisions today.
Dallmayr's various business divisions include Dallmayr Coffee, Vending & Office, Delicatessen, Catering, Restaurant, as well as Mail Order and Gift Services.
The facts at a glance:
✓ Migration to Qlik Sense
✓ Quick access to key metrics for approximately 80 field sales representatives
✓ Streamlined preparation for sales meetings
✓ Mobile access
✓ Reduced workload for the back-office team through a self-service approach
The challenge: Accessing information on the go
Dallmayr recognized early on the added value that data-driven companies can leverage as a competitive advantage. As early as 2011, QlikView was introduced to analyze data for internal departments, such as the internal sales team, and was soon adopted by the field sales team as well. “While this gave field sales representatives access to the information they needed, the process was slow and cumbersome due to the large number of reports and extensive tables, and it couldn’t keep up with current demands,” says Bettina Schäffer, Business Intelligence Manager at Dallmayr. “What employees needed was simple and fast access to information ‘on the go.’ A tool to help them better prepare for their sales calls while on the go. The QlikView solution only partially met these requirements for mobile work capabilities and access to tailored information.”
Prompted by the establishment of the new sales company, the associated further optimization of sales processes, and the provision of iPads to all field sales representatives, the existing QlikView-based analytics solution was put to the test. It quickly became clear that new software was needed—in this case, Qlik Sense.
Together with celver, we explored the migration options to achieve our goals. “What might seem at first glance like a simple ‘version upgrade’ from QlikView to Qlik Sense is actually quite a challenge to implement—not so much from a purely technical standpoint, but rather because of the self-service approach, which was new to us, at least. Here, the experience of celver’s consultants proved invaluable; they consistently encouraged us to break with old habits and view requirements—whether old or new—through a self-service lens, optimizing them accordingly for implementation in Qlik Sense.”
The solution: An intuitive dashboard for optimal preparation
The implementation of the new Qlik Sense application, codenamed “DataSpot,” went like clockwork. First, a working group was formed consisting of regional managers, a key account manager, the IT director, and the general manager. Several workshops were then held to define requirements, and mockups of the future analyses were developed based on these workshops.
Even though we carried out most of these steps on our own, it was helpful to have celver point out key considerations to keep in mind when migrating from QlikView to Qlik Sense :
• Break with old habits – don’t just copy the existing system
• Objective: (Governed) Self-Service
• Rethink data integration and the data model
• Involve the various user types early on
• Incorporate information design concepts
• Consider the user concept when developing new features
• Change management through intensive training
The actual implementation was based on an agile approach. celver AG developed prototypes based on the provided mockups. These were tested in workshops, and potential improvements were identified and promptly implemented. For the visual design of the “Data Spot,” a series of Vizlib objects were used in Qlik Sense, allowing, for example, the interactivity of the navigation to be improved. In addition, celver optimized the existing data model and implemented a more efficient star schema, which, in addition to improved visuals and functionality, also led to greater user acceptance.
Once development was complete, right at the start of the go-live phase, training sessions were held in every district. “This was crucial for the acceptance of the new solution, as it helped field staff better understand how to make optimal use of the solution on the go for their specific needs,” says Bettina Schäffer. “The intuitive dashboard makes preparing for sales calls incredibly easy. I can see everything important at a glance,” explains Dietmar Rickers, District Manager at Dallmayr Gastronomie Service.
About 80 field sales representatives are now actively using the Qlik Sense “DataSpot.” The goal of providing the field sales team with the most important up-to-date metrics quickly and flexibly has been fully achieved. “I can now easily access the data and analyses I need through the ‘DataSpot.’ This has made preparing for sales meetings much easier. With the click of a button, I know what I need to know. And everything is available on mobile devices,” says Dietmar Rickers. “I believe that our project approach—which involved close collaboration with the various user groups and support from celver—along with the agile implementation strategy, was crucial to the success of ‘DataSpot,’” explains Bettina Schäffer.
“Because the working group was involved from the very beginning, they now benefit from having their requirements implemented. They receive all the information they need and can now respond more quickly during customer visits. In addition, the office staff’s workload has been reduced, as there is no longer a need to prepare individual analyses for the field staff. Now, field staff can access all the necessary information themselves using the mobile ‘DataSpot.’ Offline availability is also a huge plus ,” says Bettina Schäffer.
Given the success of this initial migration project, follow-up projects have already been launched in collaboration with celver. For example, Qlik Sense is currently being implemented in the purchasing department of the delicatessen. QlikView is set to be gradually replaced by Qlik Sense throughout the entire company.
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