Landgard has created a user-friendly online information platform for its business partners in the plant and flower trade, which makes it much easier for them to work with the leading German producer cooperative for flowers and plants as well as fruit and vegetables. The consultants from Hamburg-based CAS AG are behind the technology used and the implementation of the project. Landgard built its new information system on the basis of the CAS Realtime Data Hub (CAS RDH) solution, which provides numerous companies with efficient, uniform access to data hidden in a wide variety of systems.
The new Landgard portal gives both the buyers of the goods, such as the specialist flower retailers, and their producers a free view of products, quantities and prices of the auctions, of the deliveries of purchased goods as well as of documents such as contracts and route plans. Since Landgard’s business partners also need the information while they are on the road, it is particularly valuable for them that the portal can also be used from mobile devices without any problems.
Among other things, the info system helps Landgard’s customers to find out in advance about the offers at the clock. The system also gives them a look at past price trends.
Transparency also for the suppliers
This information is equally valuable for the suppliers of goods: because they can track how their products are selling in the auctions and at which price. The view of average, highest and lowest prices across all sales channels, made possible by user-friendly filter functions, makes it easier for them to evaluate their own business.
On the portal, business partners can also see in a tour planner when which carrier will bring which goods. This is especially important for flower and plant retailers so that they can plan the space and personnel capacities for the delivery of CC plant trucks, for example.
Based on the CAS RDH solution, Landgard also succeeded in using the portal for the cooperative management of documents with its business partners: Thus, users can view role-specific documents such as contract documents and route plans via the portal and download them as pdf documents. Individualised user view
The predecessor of the new information system was technologically outdated and considerably less user-friendly than the new solution. There was no individualised user view and few filtering options. It also lacked the ability to use the system from mobile devices.
With the new solution based on CAS RDH, the project partners efficiently succeeded in creating a user-friendly view of data that lives in different SAP, IBM and Microsoft Navision systems of the flower and plant co-operative. In addition to the usability of the solution on all mobile devices, the users also benefit from the significantly improved downloads in Excel and pdf documents.
Among other solutions, Landgard had evaluated using SAP Portal as the technological basis for the new platform. However, SAP’s initial cost estimate made the wholesaler look for alternatives – because it was the cooperative’s declared goal not to burden either its members or its customers with costs for using the system.
Licence costs under control
The Landgard team therefore decided to use the CAS RDH solution in order to become less dependent on the pricing policy of the large software groups. With the software, CAS AG offers a secure and freely scalable solution at a fair fixed price, regardless of the number of users, data volumes or other metrics.
Reiner Domogala, Head of Integration Services at Landgard, is very satisfied with the decision in favour of the solution and the CAS AG consultants as project partners: “CAS RDH is a stringent product. The cooperation with the CAS AG consultants is always on an equal footing, both personally and professionally.” The development and introduction of the information system went so well under the leading role of CAS AG that Landgard has since put two more company solutions based on CAS RHD into operation.
Reiner Domogala is also satisfied with the project time for the development and introduction of the new Landgard information system: A proof-of-concept, in which selected suppliers were also involved, was successfully completed after only three months. After only another six months, the project partners put the new Landgard information system into operation.
High user rates
“We are a small team and don’t have time to worry about the operation of every one of our applications,” reports Reiner Domogala from Landgard. The solutions’ susceptibility to errors must therefore be very low, he says. “A system like this simply has to run without complications all all time. And that was fully met here,” he reports.
Landgard is also pleased that the new system provides detailed user statistics and data on the utilisation of the system. “It is also very helpful for internal communication to be able to show exactly how a system is used by our partners,” says Reiner Domogala. The new portal is well received by Landgard’s business partners: Of a total of 3,500 suppliers, 1,300 were already using the system in May 2022 – most of them almost every day.
