7 times more deals for Japy Tech thanks to Hive CPQ

Based in Dijon, France, Japy Tech is a manufacturer of milk cooling tanks for dairy farms. They have been using Hive CPQ to support their sales reps and dealer network since 2021. General Director and CEO Philippe Breiss and Export Sales Managers Thibaut Genteur and Loïc Vilela share their thoughts.

Milk storage and cooling expert with an eye for innovation

Philippe explains, “Japy Tech is a world-renowned expert in manufacturing instant milk cooling and storage with over hundred years of experience. We focus on three main product categories: milk tanks (for horizontal storage), silos (for vertical storage) and modular chillers (for instant cooling). Each year, we sell around 1,000 units and export these to over 50 countries worldwide.”

“Innovation has always been Japy Tech’s strong suit,” Philippe continues. “We want to produce the best-quality milk tanks. That is why we have a strong R&D department that has worked on multiple unique developments over the years, such as high-thermal exchange evaporators and improved tank washing. These increase food safety and the quality of the milk collected in our Japy tanks. We also strive to innovate our business processes by adopting software systems that help us in our daily operations. With this focus, Japy Tech can meet customer demands while serving them optimally, using the latest technological developments established by our R&D department.”

Distributors as local Japy agents

Thibaut comments, “We work with several hundreds of dealers worldwide. Our distributors buy our products and install and maintain them at nearby dairy farms. Both the proximity and responsiveness of a dealer towards the end client is really important for us, since they will be acting as a local Japy agent. We want dairy farmers and breeders to be able to rely on our distributors.”

Selling to hundreds of distributors worldwide without the help of Hive CPQ proved to be quite the challenge according to Philippe. “Back in the day, we were part of a German corporation. Our customers used their product configurator, which was quite complex because it used article codes, and then sent us screenshots of their combinations.”

But that wasn’t ideal either, Loïc explains. “Working with screenshots of the configuration didn’t really match our company values as an innovative brand. And it was also highly inefficient: our sales reps had to manually check the product compatibility and availability of every composition ordered by distributors. Very often, the combinations and the lead times were outdated, so our distributors would not be working with the right information.”

Endless exchanges simplified through CPQ

The rest of the order process was quite extensive as well. Thibaut elaborates, “First, a distributor had to translate the needs of the end customer into a Japy product using the screenshots. Then, he would request our sales reps to check compatibility and availability, also through screenshots. Once approved, the distributor would request a quote or place an order. In response, our sales reps had to manually check all the lines on the quote once again to make sure everything was correct, and then re-enter the data in the ERP system. Processing an order could take one to three days, depending on the number of modifications and exchanges between Japy and the end customer. Working like this for several hundreds of distributors was no longer feasible. Our team would spend so much time just entering and checking data, we decided we had to find a solution.”

“Being innovative and being a pioneer is at the core of our company values,” Philippe points out. “We are responsive to new trends and always want to be one step ahead in our industry. It was crucial to find a solution that allowed us to win time when generating quotes and give more autonomy to our distribution network. We performed an internal audit and learned that a CPQ would be the most beneficial solution for us. We wanted our dealers to be able to configure complex products, calculate the accurate price from several price lists and generate a quick offer without needing our help.”

Priorities: user-friendliness and easy maintenance

But there are many CPQ systems on the market, so how to make the right choice? Thibaut explains, “It was really important for us to be able to connect the CPQ software to our existing tools and to SAP. Without these integrations, our team would still have to spend time manually entering and checking data, so we really wanted to create a seamless data flow that decreases lead times.”

Philippe agrees, “We thought to use the ERP configurator module, but we quickly realized it was not at all what we wanted. The user interface was incredibly complex and heavy, making the software difficult to use, even for trained Japy experts. So we decided that user-friendliness of the CPQ was one of our main requirements. We wanted a solution that allowed our distributors to configure products and request offers independently, without requiring training. And for our part, we wanted a CPQ that was easy to maintain internally.”

Internal development to match any need

That’s when Hive CPQ came into play, according to Loïc. “At the time of the search, we were still part of a bigger multinational. One of our sister companies was involved in a proof of concept project with Hive CPQ, that’s when we saw how well the solution worked. We immediately saw the opportunities for Japy Tech.”

Why choose the Hive configure price quote solution over any other CPQ? “Because Hive CPQ is a SaaS with internal development,” according to Thibaut, “we could set up the tool to perfectly match our needs. We were able to have some custom features developed and integrated and got rid of anything we didn’t need. We created a custom Japy Tech environment that is 100% tailored to our business.”

Philippe agrees, “The Hive philosophy and the speed with which they reply to our requests also made us believe that Hive was the right choice for Japy.”

7 to 10 times more deals processed, with the same team

Japy Tech has been using the Hive CPQ environment since October 2021 and has been reaping the benefits ever since. Thibaut explains, “With Hive, our distributors can work independently, saving us a lot of time in the quoting and order process. Because the platform is so easy to use, most of our dealers require very little to no training. Our customers really appreciate Hive’s graphical interface and intuitive software. On top of that, the CPQ comes with guided selling, tooltips, technical sheets and explainer videos. We also made sure that every change in the configuration is 100% transparent for the user.”

But those are not the only advantages, according to Philippe, “We can rest assured that our dealers are always working with the latest product information and price lists. Since the CPQ is integrated with our SAP system, everything is up to date. We can now be fully transparent about our product information, availability, compatibility, and prices, something we weren’t able to do with our screenshots. And our distributors really like using Hive!”

Another challenge for Japy Tech was the long delivery times, which according to Philippe, they were able to reduce significantly. “The time required to generate and process orders has been significantly reduced. While our sales reps used to spend most of their time replying to emails and phone calls to verify orders, they can now focus on optimally supporting the distributors and further developing the network.”

Loïc adds, “We can now handle 7 to 10 times more order requests with the same team as before. This really shows how much time we’re able to save. We deliver to more dealers now, and we do it much faster than before.”

Gradual training and weekly meetings

As Export Sales Manager, Thibaut was on top of the implementation. “Together with the Hive team, we agreed on an agile implementation. The first few weeks the Hive team would train us, and we would progressively get more and more involved in the implementation until we were maintaining our environment on Hive CPQ completely independently. The Hive team remained at our disposal in case we had any questions and supported us throughout the digital transformation of the sales channel.”

“We also believed in this ‘soft’ approach,” Philippe tells, “which meant that it took a little longer than usual to implement the CPQ. But this gave us the time to train our distribution network on the new tool and allowed us to get used to this new way of working as well. Digital transformation always comes with its challenges, but we didn’t really face any major obstacles.”

A smooth collaboration, according to Thibaut as well. “It all went really well and very smoothly. We had weekly meetings on top of our daily chats. The Hive team is incredibly experienced in implementing CPQs, so they were able to help and advise us a lot. Since we wanted a CPQ with custom features, we did sometimes bump into some technical difficulties that required more thinking and discussing than anticipated. But we were able to rely on the Hive team for that too.”

More time for developing new products

What the future brings? Philippe explains, “Hive CPQ has given us the opportunity to keep focussing on innovation. Now that we have a new, digitized buying experience, we can spend more time on innovation again. We recently introduced the Hive Experience Configurator on our website as well, the best proof that Japy wants to be the first in everything! We will continue to create new products and product ranges and implement them in Hive.”

“We’re in touch with Hive every day to improve our configuration tool and the user experience of our distributors. And together we will continue to build the best possible solution for the Japy Tech distributors. We’re still ambitious to strengthen our distribution network with tools like Hive CPQ,” Thibaut concludes.