Customer Stories
HOFMANNs: Refining culinary experiences and growing revenue with enhanced customer insights
Explore HOFMANNs’ journey with SAP
To keep up with changing consumer behavior and new food trends, food specialist Hofmann Menü-Manufaktur GmbH (HOFMANNs) needs an in-depth understanding of customer preferences. To address this, the company deployed SAP Customer Experience solutions, enabling direct digital interactions with customers and improving visibility into sales processes.
digitized orders per year.
boost in people choosing to eat in business canteens.
While we’re proud of our heritage of traditional craftsmanship and quality, we’re also able to innovate our offering and embrace exciting new opportunities thanks to the digital journey we’re taking with SAP Customer Experience solutions.
Dennis Gmeiner
CEO, Hofmann Menü-Manufaktur GmbH
Putting customers at the heart of the business
Founded more than 60 years ago, HOFMANNs provides food solutions for day care centers, nurseries, schools, hospitals, and business canteens in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. With its own in-house spice kitchen and product development capabilities, and using mainly locally sourced produce from handpicked suppliers, the company has a reputation for quality, variety, and a focus on sustainability.
In recent years, a key focus for HOFMANNs has been a strategic shift to a more customer-focused approach across the business. However, with menu options selected and orders placed by cafeteria supervisors at each customer organization using a paper-based process, it was difficult to get feedback from and understand the preferences of the people actually eating the meals. To address this, the company wanted to introduce a digital ordering system that would enable end customers to choose and order their meals online – and provide feedback directly to HOFMANNs.
In addition, the company wanted to help its sales force improve the customer experience by offering a more-efficient service, tailored to the precise needs of each setting. For this reason, it decided to implement a company-wide sales management solution that provides a comprehensive view of customer history and requirements.
Integrating customer experience solutions with the existing SAP IT landscape
When looking for technology to meet HOFMANNs’ goals, the company found that SAP Customer Experience solutions were the obvious choice. As well as offering comprehensive functionality, the solutions enable straightforward integration with the company’s SAP ERP application to support the automation of processes.
With help from SAP partner Codeitlabs GmbH, HOFMANNs deployed the SAP Commerce Cloud solution to create a digital order tool. This enables people to view menus and submit orders at any time using their preferred device, and it includes an option for them to comment on how they found the meal and what they might like to change. Tight integration with SAP ERP means that the caterer can process the order and take payments without involvement from the customer organization. Meanwhile, if required, HOFMANNs can connect SAP Commerce Cloud to customer HR systems to handle the processing of meal subsidies.
In addition, Codeitlabs provided guidance and implementation support for the deployment of the SAP Sales Cloud solution, giving sales teams a single view of customer interactions. Furthermore, the solution offers advanced pipeline management functionality and detailed reporting.
Increasing sales through an improved customer experience
Through SAP Commerce Cloud, HOFMANNs receives invaluable feedback that enables the company to fine-tune its menus to suit customer demands. By using these insights to refine recipes and by offering a smooth, hassle-free ordering process, the food specialist has increased the ratio of people who decide to eat its meals and has significantly increased sales revenues.
Automated and digitalized ordering processes and meal selections reduce administration time by streamlining processes both for HOFMANNs and its clients. In addition, having digitalized data about customer orders helps HOFMANNs better understand demand in different settings and regions, enabling the company to plan more effectively to meet requirements.
Meanwhile, on-the-go access to in-depth information about customer requirements and order history provided by SAP Sales Cloud enables salespeople to be well prepared for sales meetings. This helps them make relevant recommendations and convert more opportunities into sales. And tracking the sales funnel from lead to opportunity to sale is also simplified with real-time, automated reporting – helping HOFMANNs manage its sales funnel and teams effectively and make better decisions about future sales strategy.
Having a transparent view of our sales funnel across the business enables us to drive sales more effectively and make the near-term future more predictable.
Dennis Gmeiner
CEO, Hofmann Menü-Manufaktur GmbH
Delighting taste buds through culinary innovation
Using SAP Customer Experience solutions, HOFMANNs is able to constantly enhance and fine-tune its offerings to improve customer satisfaction and grow sales. With ongoing feedback on its product portfolio, the company can optimize recipes and develop new and innovative culinary creations. What’s more, the ability to better understand the needs and wants of customers helps HOFMANNs pick up on and respond quickly to new food trends, such as the increasing demand for vegan or high-protein meals.
Meanwhile, the company plans to build on the robust technical foundation provided by SAP Commerce Cloud and SAP Sales Cloud by deploying AI technology and chatbots to further improve the user experience. In addition, HOFMANNs is currently exploring how the SAP Marketing Cloud solution can support targeted marketing activities to help grow a direct-to-consumer channel through which it offers prepared meals for delivery directly to people’s homes.
Featured partner
As a full-service technology development firm, Codeitlabs GmbH provides software development and technology consulting. The company offers complete solutions, from idea to implementation, maintenance, and support.