BME France digitizes its B2B operations with OroCommerce
BME (Building Materials Europe) is one of the European leaders in B2B distribution for construction products, sanitary items, and public works. This group was created in 2019 following the acquisition of the European distribution activities of the CRH group by the investment fund Blackstone.
BME generates an annual revenue of 3.9 billion euros (2020) in seven countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Switzerland) and employs 9,500 people through a network of 565 points of sale. In France, BME operates under two entities: Busca, specializing in the distribution of public works materials, and Raboni, specializing in the distribution of construction materials.
An ambitious development supported by digitization
Since its inception, BME has set ambitious development goals, driven by several strategic pillars (commercial excellence, supply chain, etc.), themselves supported by cross-functional foundations including digital and IT. “Various levers facilitate the execution and achievement of our strategic plan objectives, including digitization, which is central and transversal to all our topics”, confirms Yoann Roques, Director of Transformation & Strategic Programs at BME France.
Within BME, digital is not limited to web or ecommerce aspects. It is a topic that touches all areas of the company, whether it’s commerce, supply chain, purchasing, human resources, etc., aiming to improve the experience of customers, employees, and partners, as well as optimize processes.
Two targets: customers and sales teams
BME France turned to Synolia to assist in executing its web and ecommerce strategy, starting with setting up a high-performance platform common to its two entities, Busca and Raboni. “We had been planning to overhaul these sites for some time. We were also considering ecommerce for Raboni”, explains Yoann Roques. It was in 2020 that BME France finally took the plunge.
Internally, BME first wanted to facilitate and optimize the work of its teams. “Our old platform was solid but aging and lacked relevant product information and digital services. So we designed this new platform for our users.” Through it, BME France’s teams, especially sales teams, quickly access relevant and comprehensive product and service information, enriching interactions with prospects and customers and making the teams more effective and productive.
Externally, this project has mainly allowed the two companies to reposition themselves in their competitive environment. “Today, for some of our targets and prospects, if we are not present and visible on the web, we do not exist. Our customers, as well as our prospects, now have expectations and habits on digital channels. We must support this change to remain competitive and attractive”, explains Yoann Roques.
Choosing OroCommerce
To realize its project, BME France (and the BME Group) turned to the OroCommerce solution. Particularly suited to B2B ecommerce challenges, this platform offers numerous advantages: performance, rich features, modularity…
“I already knew Oro. It was a solution that had caught my attention and I wanted to share it within the BME Group”, explains Yoann Roques. “The proximity of Oro and Synolia was a significant argument in choosing the solution. A real guarantee of success for our project!” Thus, after a phase of discussions, BME France officially selected OroCommerce for its Busca and Raboni platforms.
An evolving project
The sites of the two brands have been redesigned on OroCommerce, their management centralized within the same platform. It is currently not possible to place orders but only to request quotes on the two sites of Busca and Raboni. To successfully carry out this ecommerce project, BME France wanted to proceed in several stages. “We did not want to go too fast to lay solid foundations and ensure the quality of future projects”, confirms Yoann Roques. “We wanted to do things gradually, sequence the projects, release updates regularly rather than trying to do everything in one go and end up with partially finished features. We launch one new feature at a time as soon as we are sure it is operational!”
Today, the primary objective of the two sites is to deliver reliable information to customers and prospects about products and services, facilitate quote requests, and thus contribute to business growth. And Oro’s native features perfectly meet these ambitions. Additionally, the integration with the Akeneo PIM, also managed with the support of Synolia, allows reliable, complete, and relevant product information to be displayed for customers on each site.
Furthermore, for each product, stock status and personalized prices appear live for each customer. On Raboni, customers can also create several personalized product lists based on their needs, by site, for example. Finally, BME France called on a specialized agency (Empirik) to optimize its content and SEO to better position itself on search engines.
A custom Price Provider
One of the major challenges of this project concerning price management on Raboni, Synolia developed a Price Provider. Due to the complexity of prices, it was impossible to natively integrate them into OroCommerce. “Our prices vary greatly depending on customers, negotiations, products, geographic areas… And Synolia knows Oro well enough to understand what can be developed quickly and efficiently.” Thus, the Synolia teams retrieved prices from BME France’s ERP, studied the pricing logic and various use cases to implement them into the Oro platform using a suitable Price Provider.
A powerful Store Locator
To stand out from the competition and deliver comprehensive information, the BME Group also improved the customer journey by facilitating access to its product offerings and availability for customers. rs. rs. Thus, BME France opted for a personalized and efficient Store Locator to view all network products and their availability in the nearest agencies. Today, without even logging in or selecting a specific location, a customer can see all the product offerings available at Raboni.
“We wanted customers to see our entire offering without location constraints during their web navigation. We avoid the frustration often encountered on some websites where you have no access to information until you are located. Then, if the customer decides to provide a location such as their site address, we have ensured they always see availability at the three closest agencies. Thus, other alternatives present themselves in case of unavailability at one of the three agencies. This reduces the risk of the customer leaving the site because they cannot find what they are looking for.”, explains Yoann Roques. Moreover, the Agency pages contain all necessary information such as address and hours, thanks to synchronization with Google My Business.
With OroCommerce, all flows (product information via PIM, prices via ERP, content and services via Oro) related to Busca and Raboni’s activities have been centralized on a single platform, resulting in two efficient and relevant sites. An excellent foundation for envisioning the future with confidence. “Today, we use the platform in a very classic way”, confirms Yoann Roques. “We are already considering the next projects for 2021, such as click-and-collect, further product enrichment, improving search results, and developing digital merchandising.” All these projects will be easily achievable with OroCommerce. Enough to confidently consider expanding the activities of Busca and Raboni but also all other subsidiaries of the group.
Yoann Roques, Director of Transformation & Strategic Programs, BME France
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