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~ Intershop ~

most out of our e-commerce, not only technically but than traditional B2C or direct-to-consumer sales. This
also marketing-wise and SEO-wise. Also, in addition to means that all attempts to create B2B e-commerce will
marketing and SEO, XIM also worked as consultants and require a proficient network of services, technical support,
thus helped develop the entire transformation strategy. and functionalities that go beyond the basic systems any
online store needs to sell. But how has VBH tackled all
For example, our VBH sites and our greenteQ sites this? What KPIs or plans do they develop? And what
were designed for impulse conversion. They are not only functionalities and support were provided to them by both
meant to showcase our beautiful products but also to help Intershop and XIM?
potential customers become customers.”
So far you have already rolled out the stores in
Now that you mention greenteQ, could elaborate a bit different countries for both greenteQ and VBH, and
further on this brand? we know that you have other stores that are ready to
“greenteQ is the own brand of VBH. We see ourselves roll out and are already on schedule but, could you
as a competent partner who provides our customers with give us a KPI oversight of the whole project so far?
comprehensive support and greenteQ is our bet on a more “The KPIs of the current first monitoring phase are of a
sustainable and eco-friendly line of products.” qualitative nature and include the creation of digital VBH
standards for all national companies (these enable many
Back to your digitalization journey, could you tell national companies to enter the e-commerce context in
exactly what capacities or functionalities did XIM the first place) and the consolidation of existing process
added to your e-commerce solution? structures. A model of quantitative KPIs is still to be
“Yes, for VBH, we requested XIM to optimize the shop developed. But overall, we chose Intershop because we
through adjustments to the existing configurations as well wanted a solid e-commerce solution that we could further
as revision and improvement of the data structures in PIM develop to better match the specific needs of each market.
and ERP systems. Conception and implementation of new And as we have noticed, there are indeed differences in the
shop functions, including the scanner app, and rollouts maturity level and needs of each regional market.”
planned for other countries,” says Maisch.
“For example, the Spanish market seems to be more
“For greenteQ we needed to start from zero. So, it was comfortable buying online than the German one, and the
conception and design of the new shop, programming UK has unique requirements regarding our products, that
with the latest PWA technology, online marketing (SEO), force us to have a separate website just for that market.
content creation (texts, images, graphics), interface We can say that for VBH our main goal was the process
connection, such as PIM, ERPs and the conception of the integration, to provide a full integration of all the processes
page structure and information architecture.” behind our B2B business model, and we have achieved that.
And for greenteQ what we wanted was a sturdy base to
Maisch continues: “I think that the part that was more build the digital future of our own-brand, and I think we
challenging was the creation of all the content needed for have achieved that also.”
the new greenteQ websites. But again, one of the reasons
why we chose to go with Intershop as an e-commerce What functionalities have you considered the
solution was precisely the standardization. This means that minimum required for your first e-commerce sites to
once we had one store done, we could easily ‘copy-paste’ be launched?
that same store, localize the content to the new region, and “For the first GoLives (esco, VBH BE, VBH NL), the
launch in a new market with a reduced ‘time-to-market’ MVP had to be set up in such a way as to establish the
and the same level of quality, obviously under the same use of a new online shop without (actual predecessors)
process and application architecture. We functionally have for existing customers. Each national company or market
the same store, just in different languages, which is more started with a homogeneous sub-range and clear standards
efficient.” for processes and services. The product range and service
offering were expanded in subsequent phases, for which
An international expansion plan supported by a B2B customer feedback was also incorporated in each case,” says
e-commerce Maisch.
One of the main reasons behind VBH’s e-commerce
transition is to lay down a solid foundation for “Also, for VBH DE’s go-live with a pre-existing online
international expansion. This is a delicate and complex shop, the MVP was used to map its functional catalogue
matter in the B2B industry. and integrate additional functionalities (including guest
access and a subscription function) as part of a regular
By their nature, B2B processes tend to be more complex, development process. There was and is also a constant
recurring, and detailed and require more technical support exchange with the customers.”

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