Repanels Customer Story: Engineering Precision Commerce with StoreConnect & Salesforce

Repanels Group is a Belgian based holding company with three door panel production factories in European locations. They are the European market leader in sectional door panels, both in quantity and quality, known as ‘dedicated door people’. With a reputation for innovation, an extensive product line and attentive service, Repanels serves a diverse and loyal customer base globally.

The Challenge: Disconnected Operations to a Single Source of Truth

Before its transformative project, Repanels faced a fragmented operational landscape.

The group, formed from two formerly independent companies, had significant operational and technological challenges after the merger:

• Two separate bespoke ERPs

• A custom ordering system that only served one entity

• CRM functions managed primarily with spreadsheets

• Hundreds of orders and thousands of line items needing to be processed every month.

This manifested across the combined company with:

• Lack of sales visibility: No real-time data existed on order intake or sales performance for sales teams and the group as a whole.

• Inconsistent pricing: Maintaining uniform pricing across various channels and systems in a timely manner was impossible.

• Complex product presentation: With over 7,000 unique SKUs including combinations of panel profiles, dimensions, colors and finish textures, it was incredibly difficult to show and manage their vast product catalog clearly to customers, while managing them internally was equally difficult.

• Slow & error-prone order entry: Customers often placed orders via unstructured emails to support teams, leading to long and confusing email chains, delays and many opportunities for error.

“We knew we needed to do something radical”, said Wouter Willems, Commercial Director.

“We were running sales without any real-time data on order intake. We had customers sending orders directly to our support team in a one-line email. We had people asking for product variations that didn’t exist. Our first goal was to get everyone on the same page around order intake.”

Repanels embarked on a mission to modernize, seeking a platform that offered operational flexibility and the speed to adapt to new markets. The goal was to simultaneously implement a new CRM and ERP, alongside a streamlined ordering system capable of handling both self-service and manual processes seamlessly. This led them to select Salesforce for CRM and StoreConnect for eCommerce, integrated with Microsoft Business Central as their ERP.

The StoreConnect Solution: Powering Precision and Visibility

The selection of StoreConnect for their eCommerce requirements was driven by a critical requirement: Repanels wanted a single source of truth for all order management, regardless of how an order was entered.

StoreConnect is a native Salesforce application that reads all product information directly from the standard Salesforce product object and saves all orders across in Standard Salesforce Orders associated with Salesforce Accounts and contacts. It also provides the flexibility and power to solve their complex product configuration, pricing and inventory requirements.

This incredible flexibility made StoreConnect the clear choice. Having all information in Salesforce ensured a unified product database, consistent pricing and the same order flow across their entire sales and order fulfillment process. It also meant far easier management of the hundreds of orders and thousands of line items flowing through their sales line monthly and real-time reporting on sales, orders and related information.

Mastering the Complex Product Catalog:

One of StoreConnect’s immediate impacts was the discipline it brought to Repanels’ product catalog.

The platform required a consistent set of attributes and characteristics for all 7,000+ SKUs, transforming the complexity into a manageable, searchable database.

“It was essential that we could efficiently manage the large product catalog and make it easy to find the right product,” notes Sebastian Pierre, IT Manager.

“Part of our complexity is that each panel requires three dependent parameters to be picked and then customers also specify three additional order parameters for each item. So what we really needed was a sort of ‘mini configurator’ on the product page for every ordered line item. This complexity made any off-the-shelf eCommerce package a no-go. We needed something with a lot more power.”

Tailored for B2B Excellence

Repanels’ StoreConnect deployment is uniquely tailored for its B2B model. It functions primarily as a sophisticated customer order entry system and is accessible to Repanels’ customers by invitation only. Direct payments are not taken, as all invoicing is handled by the ERP.

This high level of customization allows the web ordering interface to perfectly align with the industry’s specific ordering practices, rather than forcing standard e-commerce conventions on the business. The flexibility afforded by StoreConnect also enables custom features like re-ordering frequently purchased configurations in just a few clicks.

“The brilliance of the StoreConnect solution where Repanels is concerned is that we are using the same product database, the same price books and the same order object no matter how the order is entered,” said Bill Fetter of Unfettered Marketing, a Salesforce consultant who assisted Repanels.

“The sales team sees all their orders right on the account object and we can easily build them reports and dashboards that show where their customers are relative to their forecasts. They never had anything like this level of information available before.”

Transformative Benefits: Real-time Insights & Streamlined Workflow

With StoreConnect, Repanels has achieved significant operational improvements:

• Unprecedented sales visibility: Salespeople now have real-time dashboards showing orders, customer activity, and performance against targets – a drastic improvement from their previous lack of insight.

• Operational efficiency: New eCommerce orders seamlessly integrate with existing workflow processes through Salesforce flow automations that are common with manual and XML order entry.

• Enhanced customer experience: Customers can now self-configure and submit orders anytime, streamlining their purchasing journey. They can also view their full order history, regardless of how the order was placed, providing a community-like experience.

• Data-driven decisions: Repanels can now easily analyze product mix, popular colors, designs and thicknesses, enabling them to make informed business decisions.

With these efficiencies and improvements Repanels has significantly reduced their administrative burden while improving order entry speed. They are now actively working to shift more orders to self-service, leveraging dashboards to identify high impact customers.

“The business also had no easy way to understand or visualize what products or product characteristics like design or color were the most popular, now this is all available right on a dashboard in real time,” Bill Fetter added.

The Partnership: StoreConnect’s Unwavering Support

Throughout this complex implementation, StoreConnect’s responsiveness and commitment to development stood out. When faced with unique requirements, StoreConnect proactively integrated their requirements into their product roadmap or provided beta access to upcoming features.

Bill noted, “Almost never have we heard the word ‘no’. It was always, ‘Well, I think we can figure it out’ or ‘we have that feature coming.’” This collaborative approach allowed Repanels to push the boundaries of what was possible, continuously evolving the platform to meet their needs.

Looking ahead

Repanels continues to leverage StoreConnect’s flexibility to build out more features, including plans to enable customers to submit cases and view their resolutions directly within the platform, further solidifying the unified customer experience without needing additional systems.

Their journey underscores the power of a truly unified native Salesforce eCommerce solution to transform even the most complex of B2B operations.