Joris Ide speeds up quotation process with Hive CPQ

Joris Ide's product portfolio primarily consists of steel roof and wall panels, technical profiles, and all necessary accessories to complete a steel building. With 19 production sites, the company serves industrial and residential construction, the project market, and the agricultural sector, delivering across large parts of Western and Eastern Europe. Each year, more than 425,000 tons of steel roll leave Joris Ide’s production site.

Bernard explains, "We mainly work with architectural firms, project developers, and engineering firms for buildings across various industries, but we also have a B2C offering, including garden sheds and carports."

“Our internal sales team has been using a custom-built quote tool within SAP for years; however, it has an administrative focus and lacks user-friendliness. With so many options available within our product offering, it takes quite some time to calculate a price. For a while now, we had been considering a product configurator with a strong visual element that allows for intuitive operation. The goal was for users to assemble a building – focusing on roofing, facades, and accessories – in just a few clicks. This would enable even someone with minimal product knowledge, such as a new employee or a customer, to generate a quote."

Joris Ide works with delaware to improve its digital customer experience. Together, they explored whether it was best to develop product configuration software in-house or purchase an existing solution. Bernard explains, "Our existing environment is based on SAP’s standard solution, so we typically develop such applications internally using Fiori, SAP’s design system. However, after comparing the cost-benefit ratio and time-to-deploy, we concluded that bringing in an expert was the better option. After seeing the user interface and built-in capabilities of Hive CPQ, the decision was clear: their platform aligns well with our needs, and its user-friendliness, 3D visualization, and rendering capabilities were key factors. The seamless integration with our S/4 system – critical for processing our master data – also played a significant role."

“We initially used the configurator internally for six months to ensure everything worked smoothly. During this period, we identified and corrected errors in master data and calculations. We wanted to build internal trust first. Once our employees saw that it worked well and no errors would come through to customers, enthusiasm grew.” Since October 2024, the configurator has been externally available via their B2B platform and website.

Joris Ide’s internal sales team can now generate quotes more quickly, and the number of quote requests has also increased. “Since launching the public configurator for private customers, we’ve seen a steady rise in price requests, even without an active marketing campaign. This has opened up a completely new sales channel with additional revenue potential. Internal feedback has also been positive.”

The project was part of a broader initiative with delaware, with whom Joris Ide has had a long-standing collaboration. “Joris Ide’s digital team defined the configurator’s specifications, followed by monthly status meetings to track progress,” says Simon from delaware.

Bernard adds, “The team was in near-daily contact to align on various aspects – essential when developing a graphical user interface with numerous variants, colors, and details. The collaboration went well overall: both project execution and deliverables met expectations. Our digital team was closely involved, and our marketing department also contributed, particularly with the look and feel and branding. Sales and back office teams participated in testing and validating the configurator.”

At the time of writing, the collaboration between Joris Ide, Hive CPQ, and delaware is ongoing. “We are currently working on Wetterbest, our Romanian business unit specializing in gutters and other roofing products. We have developed a gutter configurator, which is also relevant for the existing Product configurator since no roof is complete without gutters. Wetterbest had specific branding requirements, requiring some adjustments to the configurator.”

Another planned expansion is the integration of accessories and components for solar panels. “While we don’t sell solar panels ourselves, we do provide all the materials needed to install them on (our) roofs. This functionality will soon be available in the Product configurator.”

What’s next? “So far, we have deliberately limited the configurator to ‘simple’ rectangular buildings with flat roofs. We are now exploring expansions for other building types, such as L-shaped buildings and gable roofs. These upgrades will further assist resellers and engineering firms in quickly generating materials lists. Another planned expansion focuses on walls: seemingly simple, but with many complexities. Fortunately, we now have the framework, templates, workflows, experience, and knowledge to take those next steps.”

We at Hive CPQ look back on this successful collaboration with Joris Ide and delaware with great satisfaction. We look forward to further expanding and enhancing Joris Ide’s configurator in the future!