With a relationship spanning more than 10 years, Schmidt Groupe is perhaps one of our biggest and longest-standing clients. Its Schmidt and Cuisinella brands are popular all over the world, selling beautiful, made-to-measure, top-of-the-range kitchen furniture, as well as living room furniture and wardrobes.
As the group sells itself on its made-to-measure offering, a 3D configuration tool is crucial for streamlining the sales to production process and helping salespeople sell. 3CAD was brought on board in 2010 to generate production data and design, to streamline the sales to production process, and to validate orders graphically.
As with all of 3CAD’s customers, ours is a truly collaborative partnership, where we tailor the 3CAD offering to suit the Schmidt Groupe’s individual needs.
Intuitive and easy to use
3CAD is intuitive and offers visual consistency, meaning there is much less room for error as BOMs (Bill of Materials) can be easily checked. Plus, it is easy to cross-reference product codes to ensure there are no discrepancies.
Improved sales
Because 3CAD is responsive and so easy to use, with its simple drag and drop functionality, salespeople are able to design faster and more confidently, and in real-time with the customer present. It’s also vital for consumers to be able to visualise the final product in photorealistic 3D as this visualisation makes it a much easier sell.
After a design is agreed upon, a quote is automatically generated, allowing the salesperson to seal the deal.
Currently, 80% of simple wardrobe sales are generated on 3CAD for both Cuisinella and Schmidt brands.
Collaboration and bespoke service
Working closely with Schmidt Groupe, 3CAD has customised software specifically for configuring Schmidt and Cuisinella brands wardrobes, developing a new cloud-based solution. This tool has been welcomed by retailers who saw significant sales increases, although these were hampered slightly by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Schmidt Groupe has also seen its automatic validation order rate accelerate since this customised tool was implemented.
This demonstrates a typical evolutionary relationship with 3CAD, which will improve over time the more we get to know the brand, and business model. Starting from a “3CAD Pro” software, the total customization and continuous use of the platform gave great results and pushed the company to add the “3CAD Next” (cloud-based), maintaining both of the solutions.
Customer service
The heart of Schmidt Groupe’s ethos lies in always putting the customer front and centre, and 3CAD makes it easy for the company’s retailers to do this – quickly generating, and automatically validating orders so sales people can focus on the customer rather than the sales process.
‘The 3CAD software solution allows us to make a real difference,’ comments Philippe Kaempf, Configuration Competence Center IT Manager at Schmidt Groupe. ‘It has taken many discussions on the use and practicality to develop a perfect fit. This is a true partnership, a collaboration upon coconstruction. The 3CAD solution was customised and adapted for the group as part of the
partnership between DAU and Schmidt Groupe.’
