Name: CoDigital
Price range: $

Cases

E-commerce

Self-Service

The renewed supplier portal of Intergamma has been built in record time

Customer name

Intergamma

Customer since

2016

Products

SAP Commerce Cloud

"Intergamma aims to become the best omni-channel retailer in the Benelux. To achieve this, high-quality data is essential."

Ingmar Hensbergen, Manager Product Data Management at Intergamma

Better positioning products omnichannel

For many DIY enthusiasts, a project starts online. This is where they research how to complete a task and which products to use. However, for products to be found, they need to be searchable, including the correct and complete product specifications. With the new supplier portal – based on SAP Commerce Cloud with SAP Product Content Management (PCM) – Intergamma and Acorel are making it much easier for suppliers to maintain their product data and position their products better omnichannel.

Intergamma is the organization behind the DIY retail formulas Gamma in the Netherlands and Belgium, and Karwei. With almost four hundred stores in the Netherlands and Belgium, Intergamma is the number one in the DIY market. "And we have the ambition to become the best omni-channel retailer in the Benelux," says Ingmar Hensbergen, Manager Data Management at Intergamma. "We were already very active online, and due to the pandemic, that channel has only become more important."

The Best of Customer Success 2020

Intergamma was one of the 20 nominations for the digital SAP event 'The Best of Customer Success 2020' in the 'Customer Excellence' category. Ingmar Hensbergen, Manager Data Management at Intergamma, and Anouk Renaud, Intergamma Product Owner of the Product Content team, discuss the revamped supplier portal in the video. Intergamma is our 2nd customer project this year that we were able to present at the digital SAP event 'The Best of Customer Success 2020'.

80% of our customers first research online

According to Hensbergen, eighty percent of customers first research online before purchasing the products they need in our stores or online shops. "We have over 5 million visitors on our websites weekly. So, if product data is not accurate, the customer might not find the product they need, resulting in lost revenue for the supplier," explains Hensbergen. "Or the customer may discover in-store that the online product information was incorrect."

User-friendly supplier portal

Maintaining over 100,000 products by our suppliers, as stated by Hensbergen, 'is quite a task' for them. "For a smart lamp, it could involve filling in up to 150 fields. In total, we are talking about over 1 billion fields." Furthermore, for suppliers, it was not always easy to find a specific product in the supplier portal. "It was essentially a large collection where all items were stored. The old supplier portal was not user-friendly and not fast enough."

That needed to change. Intergamma wanted to provide suppliers with better opportunities to enhance the overall quality of product information. In order to work faster, they needed access to the same search and filter options that Intergamma internally used. A revamp of the supplier portal was necessary for this. "And preferably as soon as possible, with as much value as possible. Every day we did not go live with the new portal was a lost day," says Anouk Renaud, Product Owner of the Product Content team at Intergamma.

"It has been a truly close collaboration. Not only between Business and IT but also with the suppliers who could contribute their ideas."

Ingmar Hensbergen, Manager Product Data Management at Intergamma

One central data platform

Intergamma undertook the revamping of the supplier portal in collaboration with SAP partner Acorel, which is also part of the Scrum team under Renaud's supervision. "Without Acorel, I wouldn't have developers on this project."

The two parties created one central data platform with SAP Commerce Cloud for creating and maintaining high-quality product data from suppliers. According to Maurice Rootjes, managing partner at Acorel, choosing SAP Commerce was the obvious choice. "In 2011, we set up a Product Information Management (PIM) system with SAP Product Content Management (PCM). So, it made sense to base the revamped supplier portal on SAP Commerce, to align the supplier's workflow as much as possible with the internal workflow. This way, we can collaborate more efficiently."

SAP Commerce implemented in record time

An agile approach ensured the desired speed. Renaud: "You shouldn't try to do too much at once, as it will take too long. Therefore, we work in two-week sprints, delivering value every two weeks. This also allows us to quickly address feedback from suppliers. We have always been honest and open about what is feasible and what is not."

"It has been a truly close collaboration. Not only between Business and IT, but also with the suppliers who could express their wishes during online workshops and contribute their ideas," continues Hensbergen. "After the delivery of the revamped portal by Anouk's team, we organized three online training sessions together with over 400 external users from more than 200 suppliers. This way, we were able to smoothly implement this portal in record time during the pandemic."