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Acquired 30 years ago by its current CEO, the company now positions itself as a true metalworking expert and a French manufacturer that exports the French art of living worldwide. What sets it apart? Its products come in 24 colors. It is a winning recipe: Fermob generates €100 million in annual revenue and grows 10 to 15% a year, with 400 employees and 3 production sites in France.
For several years, Fermob has faced a major underlying challenge: digital transformation. Aware of what is at stake and of how necessary it is to stay relevant, efficient and competitive, the company quickly launched initiatives in that direction. That is how, three years ago, Fermob brought in Benjamin Balatin as transformation director.
“My role is to keep the group’s growth momentum going. So I handle every project related to it, whatever the business function, and work to remove the obstacles that slow it down. I pursue business and productivity goals, but also goals around employee peace of mind and well-being.”
In this context, Fermob wanted to optimize its project management and foster more effective, more innovative and more personalized collaboration. To make this ambition a reality, it decided to bet on monday.com, the market-leading collaborative work tool. “Before, project management at Fermob was specific to each department. Some teams already used management tools, but nothing that could really be rolled out company-wide. Others worked in a less structured way, juggling emails, Excel files and PowerPoint presentations,” says Benjamin Balatin.
But before considering a large-scale rollout of monday.com, the tool was first tested by one specific team. “The first customer of the solution at Fermob was me!” recalls Benjamin Balatin. “I was looking for a tool to run my projects and share data with my team. I chose monday.com! And I brought along project managers I work with a lot, including the transformation team and part of the digital marketing and e-commerce team. There were 8 of us in total.”
What won Benjamin Balatin over: how easy monday.com is to learn, its modularity and its intuitive design.
“Some of our projects only need simple organization, while others require more sophisticated management. I wanted a tool that could adapt to every context without requiring too much setup effort on my part.”
After this familiarization phase, an entire pilot project was run on monday.com: the launch and management of Welcome, a service that digitizes the customer experience for hospitality and restaurant professionals. To create this service, led by Benjamin Balatin, all processes and project management were coordinated in monday.com. “To structure everything, we created several boards: one to list the business opportunities coming from the CRM, one to manage the development of each project with freelancers (app, content, photos, brand guidelines…), one to track the production of app-related materials (QR codes, business cards, stickers, items…) and one to manage the marketing plan for Welcome’s development,” explains Benjamin Balatin.
All the operational activities of this cross-functional project were managed in monday.com. Collaboration between teams was also organized around the tool, making it easier to share information, track task completion and keep every employee productive. For his part, Benjamin Balatin was able both to steer each project effectively and to use the tool’s reporting to consolidate activity, track revenue and optimize how his teams are managed.
“From the start, I was easily able to replicate our processes in monday.com and gain better visibility, for myself and for the whole team”
With monday.com, Fermob was able to roll out its Welcome project quickly and effortlessly. “The project managers were largely able to learn the tool and set it up on their own. Today, they can build advanced boards quickly. monday.com has been a real accelerator,” says Benjamin Balatin. Thanks to the tool, the teams working on Welcome saved valuable time not only in carrying out their tasks but also in organizing their work. And it is all the more enjoyable with an attractive, dynamic design.
“In my view, the tool's strength lies in its ability to adapt to any request. At no point did I have to give up on an idea or a need. We were able to do absolutely everything with monday.com”
Three features particularly impressed Benjamin Balatin and his teams:
“I didn’t expect it. All our operational discussions happen there. It wasn’t necessarily something I was looking for, but this feature turned out to be very useful. It saves us a huge number of emails!”
“They make it easy to move tasks forward in a workflow and notify the people involved. This feature makes management much easier. We have become more efficient at handoffs between teams, whereas we used to work a bit in silos. With automations, we are up and running immediately.”
“We don’t use it enough yet! But I use it for the Welcome project and to present results in important meetings, and the reports are dynamic, clear and adjustable all at once! That’s a real plus. Especially since they are pleasant to look at for everyone involved!”
From the outset, Fermob’s teams quickly got to grips with monday.com. Intuitive and highly customizable, it is easy to make your own. Benjamin Balatin does offer a word of caution, though: “you still need to strike the right balance between the guided side of the tool, with its templates, and each person’s freedom in how they use it. Not every project manager has the same boards: that’s the beauty of monday.com. You have to agree on the shared foundation you need, and then everyone does it their own way.” Each employee can indeed adapt the tool extensively to their needs and preferences while working within a shared framework. It is up to each person to set the dial where they want to boost their productivity.
However, to reach a high level of expertise and truly master the tool, Fermob’s teams were supported by Synolia. “For 8 months, we tried to manage basic needs on our own, relying on the vendor’s resources. But it wasn’t enough!” No clear direction, unknown new features, untapped possibilities, trial and error… Benjamin Balatin’s teams quickly hit limits in their use of the tool. “We realized it was better to be supported by an expert.”
That is when the company called on Synolia. Over two months, numerous workshops were held to train the teams. “In 8 sessions with Synolia, we built Welcome’s various activities in monday.com. Our consultant showed us a lot, but above all he had us do the work ourselves. And there is nothing better than hands-on practice to truly make the tool your own. With Synolia, our learning curve sped up. We discovered more effective, more advanced setups for automations, integrations, dashboards…” recalls Benjamin Balatin. After this upskilling, the project managers used the tool more effectively and to better purpose, with immediate operational results.
How do you know whether the monday.com project at Fermob is a success? “First of all, by measuring adoption,” says Benjamin Balatin. The employees who joined the monday.com adventure at Fermob now use the tool daily and spontaneously. “Above all, all the surrounding teams that work with us are asking to use it.”
From the start, monday.com enabled the Welcome team to handle the production and delivery of projects to its customers. “Our commitment to professionals is very strict, with very tight deadlines. As soon as the quote is signed, we commit to delivering the app and the content within 72 hours. Today, we are approaching fifty customers and we have always met our deadlines. monday.com has contributed greatly to that success,” says Benjamin Balatin. That is why Fermob is considering using monday.com to rethink its processes or, at the very least, create new ones.
Fermob also plans to extend monday.com to other teams soon. “We will bring them on board as they start working with us on transformation projects. By gradually making this the standard, we will quickly multiply the number of users of the solution.” Fermob has already identified flagship projects in its roadmap that involve many stakeholders and where monday.com will prove its full value. It is bound to succeed, since true ambassadors will support them along the way!
"With Synolia, our learning curve sped up. We discovered more effective, more advanced setups for automations, integrations, dashboards…"
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