WENKO: Managing order operations efficiently with Power Apps

With the deployment of Power Platform, WENKO has revolutionized its external sales force and digitized the cumbersome transfer of previously written orders. Now, orders are simply created in the low-code/no-code scan app and transferred directly to SAP.

Previously, orders were placed by the sales department manually in Excel or written down on paper.

Subsequent transfer to the SAP system was error-prone

Solution had to fit seamlessly into the Microsoft infrastructure

Development of a power app for the entire order process

Products can be searched for in the app or collected via barcode scan in a single order

Interface to the SAP system

Error reduction thanks to an automated order process

Intuitive design: ready to use without major training requirements

Functionalities also available in "offline mode“

Time savings in the order process = more time for face-to-face customer interaction

It was clear to WENKO-WENSELAAR that the digitization journey should also optimize the work of the external sales force. For this purpose, a digital solution was to be created that operated in the Microsoft world, as the new solution also had to be integrated into the existing infrastructure in an easy and straightforward manner. As an experienced Microsoft partner, novaCapta was brought in for the project. "Digitalization is a major topic in our company. For this, we intentionally work with large partners via outsourcing," explains Thomas Trapmann, Head of Service Unit IT.

Previously, the colleagues in the field had collected orders e.g from hardware stores and furniture stores either manually or in an Excel file, which was then e-mailed to the office staff and transferred to the SAP system. "We defined the requirements for the solution with our colleagues from the sales team. Based on this, we were able to design a solution that covers the wishes of the sales team, such as the scanning of products, as well as taking into account any hurdles, such as the often missing connection to the internet at our customers' premises in the hardware or furniture store," explains Andre Niehaus, Head of IT Portals.

A Power App in WENKO's corporate design was created that daily extracts all available products and customer data from the existing SAP and PIM systems via an interface and delivers them consolidated in Dataverse. This ensures that only available products can be reordered.

The sales team has two options for creating an order: using the search bar to find the product in question and add it to the order, or scanning the product barcode. Colleagues can thus directly walk through the product lines with their customers in the store and easily place reorders using the barcode scan. With more than 2,000 products, 27,000 item information, 8,000 customer and 15,000 address data, WENKO has a large assortment to choose from as well as a high data volume of customer information available in the application.

The app also works offline. In the event of no internet access, orders are entered, saved locally and immediately transferred to the system when an internet connection is available. In addition, the returns process is integrated in the Power App. It can be used to create the pickup receipt for the shipper. Thanks to the QR code, the flow of goods can be easily tracked. WENKO's customers can thus get their ordered goods even faster and activities are better targeted and coordinated. 

"We particularly liked Power Platform's low code/no code approach. We were able to build a solution very quickly and make it available to our colleagues. The solution is very flexible and can be extended at any time. This gives us a lot of freedom and strengthens our independence from external service providers over the long run," says Thomas Trapmann, Head of the IT Service Unit. In the future, the scan app will be translated into other languages. So far, WENKO has a German and English version, which can be easily selected by switching the user interface.

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