FTZ

All the way around the world - that’s how many miles FTZ’s 320 vans drive each day on the Danish roads. FTZ is the largest wholesale distributor of spare parts and tools for the auto industry.

In addition to becoming seven times larger through mergers, the company has enjoyed an annual growth of 10-15 percent. Such an increase in sales activity will normally have the same impact, in terms of administration, but FTZ has avoided this by using an invoice processing system called Symfoni Invoice Manager (SIM).

From many to few hands
The quantity of invoices has grown from 16,800 to 27,000 per month over the past two years. FTZ has avoided employing more staff because 85-90 percent of all invoices are now handled through SIM. Eighty percent of these are so-called auto-matched, which me ans they are approved by the system without human interference, this being based upon a direct comparison with the purchased order and the receipt. Two years ago FTZ managed 16,800 invoices manually, but today the number has decreased to 4000

”Before we started our cooperation with Symfoni, our criterion for success was that we had to handle future growth with the same number of employees. Without SIM we would probably have doubled the number of employees in the department,” says Lars Romsøe, IT Manager at FTZ.

Complex organization
The implementation of SIM has been quite complicated and it has been necessary with comprehensive adaptation of the system. FTZ is a very complex organization that differs a lot from others - partly because they are operating with a unique self-developed trading system.

“It has presented some challenges to implement the necessary processes into SIM. However, Symfoni’s consultants understood our needs and we now have a system that we appreciate and that works,” says Lars Romsøe.

CRM was placed in 52 heads
After the implementation of SIM, FTZ expanded its collaboration with Symfoni to include Symfoni CRM. FTZ did not have a CRM system, they therefore required a better overview of customer data and sales history.

Previously FTZ had to communicate with 52 different CRM systems, these being located in the minds of the 52 external sales staff. They knew their own customers, but there was no information structure and therefore it was difficult to employ new sellers or rotate work tasks.  Now all sellers can use their mobile phones to retrieve the necessary customer information and be better prepared for meetings. For example, by looking at the sales history they can decide whether they can sell more of a specific product.

“It’s a super useful tool, which makes our sellers more prepared for meetings. It is beneficial for FTZ and the customer, the latter receiving better and more qualified service,” says Poul Pedersen.

Targeted marketing
FTZ is now working towards bringing the data from Symfoni CRM into the AS 400 financial system, which is where FTZ currently has a range of marketing information.

”It allows you to use all the valuable information about customers in a more strategic manner. Today, we must admit that our marketing material is not targeted at our users’ needs and wants. However, when we extract data from the CRM system, we can better target our campaigns,”
explains Poul Pedersen.

Facts about FTZ:
FTZ is Denmark’s largest distributor of spare parts and tools for the auto industry.
FTZ has 47 departments spread throughout the country.
FTZ has 800 employees.
FTZ has an annual turnover of 1.2 billion DKK.
FTZ is a part of the procurement cooperation Nordic Forum.