Happy birthday to our Krones.shop!

2019 is rather a special year for us: our Krones.shop is five years old! To mark the occasion, we should like to briefly recall the achievements of its first few years – so I talked to Bernd Baldauf, Head of Global eBusiness and Digital Data Management. He himself has been part of the Krones family since the summer of 2013 and handles our eBusiness operations.

The “Krones.shop project” was launched by Bernd Baldauf five years ago. Originally, he says, it was conceived as a spare part shop. But the Executive Board quickly realised that this was not ambitious enough. There was an urgent need for an online platform with additional helpful applications for our clients, so as to really offer an added value for them and our internal specialists. So in 2014, following just nine months of preparation, the shop went live – and a lot has happened since then!

In 2015 the Krones.shop was launched in Germany with great success. The European rollout followed almost immediately. But no one back then yet realised how successful the Krones.shop would become. “The Krones.shop platform can currently be reached in 173 different countries and in 8 different languages, offering our clients an assortment of almost 5 million spare parts. This is supplemented by an expanded range of capabilities like upgrades, stock packages, bundles, and many other services,” says Bernd Baldauf. And this no longer only in Europe, but meanwhile worldwide on four different continents! What’s more, it’s not only Krones itself that’s represented on the internet platform. Products from our subsidiaries or third-party vendors can also be conveniently ordered from here.

The shop is steadily evolving – as indeed is the team behind it. Within four short years, the eBusiness team has grown from four staff to a total of 50. In 2018, it was finally time for a redesign. So last year we gave our Krones.shop a new face and revamped some of its functions and features, so as to improve its user-friendliness. “In the same year, we reached a transaction volume of 100 million euros. Something we can all be proud of. For 2019, we are anticipating further gratifying growth,” says Berndt Baldauf. And the shop’s repertoire also includes further digital tools, like the eGuide: “With the aid of the eGuide, our sales people can draw up a quotation for the client within a minimised timeframe”.

In future, too, of course, this platform is scheduled for steady design-enhancement, so as to provide up-to-the-future services for our clients. “The world is becoming more and more digitalised, as we know from our private lives. Thus the expectations of our clients, staff and vendors are also focused increasingly on cross-specialism digital tools. This, of course, inevitably impacts upon the Krones.shop and all other digital solutions. So it will be a challenge in the years ahead to put in place an ecosystem for the Krones Group – so as to have the right information available at the right place and the right time. And it’s all protected as well, so that our Krones know-how cannot be simply disseminated,” Bernd Baldauf tells me.

One thing at least is certain: a lot has been accomplished in recent years – and will be accomplished in the future as well. So we can look forward to seeing what innovations await us in the years ahead.