Quotation errors: at Ufkes Greentec, they're a relic of the past

Read the customer case:

My name is Piet Yntema, and I am the manager at Ufkes Greentec. Our company was founded in 2004, and currently, we have 60 employees at Ufkes. We manufacture machines for the wood processing industry, such as choppers and stump cutters. Our business operates in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, and England. Additionally, we have several dealers outside Europe. However, for the most part, our business mainly takes place within a 500-kilometer radius around the Netherlands.

Initially, we began by importing forage harvesters from America. However, in America, choppers were built only to shred the wood. Recognizing the high value of wood chips in Europe, we aimed to produce high-quality wood chips. Therefore, we had to make numerous adjustments to the choppers here, which led us to decide to start our own production of shredders in 2009. Up until 2004, we only imported, but since 2009, we have had our own production line. 

In 2016, we opened our new production hall, which allowed us to have a clear division between service, repair, and the production of our machines. In 2019, we also founded our own company in Sauerland, Germany. From Germany, we are able to sell our machines and offer services throughout all of Germany.

The difference between competitors

The difference between us and our competition is that we strive to build our machines very compactly. The competition often works with multiple machines or develops larger machines, unlike us, where we try to fit the same capacity into a smaller machine. Therefore, our machines are extremely flexible and can be used in villages as well as cities, allowing labor to be performed directly on-site. Similar machines from other manufacturers are often limited to a certain type of location due to their size and lack of mobility. Our customers can start labor immediately on-site where the trees are cut down.

Currently, we offer seven different shredders, each with 50 different accessories to choose from. Additionally, each accessory has approximately 20 different functions. Altogether, there are many different possibilities because we offer a wide range of machines. With a standard machine package, we aim to meet our customers’ wants and needs as much as possible to successfully deliver the final machine. Since we offer 50 different chippers with 50 different accessories, which, as mentioned before, have 20 different functions, we can use this wide range of products and accessories to develop the desired machine for every customer. Other manufacturers usually produce standard machines for the customer, where customers then have to make adjustments themselves or have it adjusted for them. Our advantage is that when the machine does not meet all the customer’s needs, we can produce a specific desired machine with all the standard parts.

Price structure

We used to work with a fixed price per machine, but due to the many options that every machine has, this became quite complex for dealers, who normally don’t actually offer shredders with that many possible configurations. Often these traders ordered too many machines, too little, or a specific combination of accessories that was impossible to manufacture. CPQ software solves this problem automatically. When the dealer chooses a specific option, certain options within the combination are excluded. In the past, dealers used to contact our headquarters to figure out why certain combinations were possible and why others were not, or to ask whether combinations were even possible at all. Dealers are now able to set up a perfect quotation for the customers every time.

Dealers manage everything themselves

In the past, dealers often asked us: "We want to offer a machine; what can you supply?" or "Do you think this quote is correct?" The dealer then sent this to the customer, which raised questions like: "Is this also possible or is that also a possibility?" Then the dealer had to contact the main office again, and somewhere during this entire process, an offer was made. What has changed is that the dealer can now generate a perfect quotation on-site for their client. The customer and dealer can now sit down together to discuss the different options and possible combinations, which translates into a correct quotation, without the help from us in Drachten. Back in the day, we had to re-engineer every new product because all machines were so different from each other. Nowadays, we only have to replace one module or certain standard parts, in order for us to produce the specific desired machine for each customer.

Choosing Elfsquad CPQ

We compared different CPQ packages with each other, and based on this comparison, Elfsquad emerged as the most user-friendly platform to use. We needed two weeks to input all our required data and product offerings into Elfsquad. After these two weeks, Elfsquad’s platform was ready to use immediately, allowing us to make quotations right away. What we experienced during trials with other CPQ providers was the complexity of programming all the different types of combinations.

Currently, only A-dealers and some field services work with Elfsquad. Additionally, we have made an online showroom available for our clients so that they can directly configure the desired product on our website. After configuring their desired product on our website, they schedule a meeting with us. The greatest advantage for our sales team is that they don’t have to contact the headquarters anymore to make offers and generate quotations. The headquarters used to set up the quote on request of the dealer, after which followed further negotiations.

The benefits of Elfsquad

Now, the dealer can immediately prepare a quote for the customer, which saves a lot of time because they no longer need to contact the headquarters to set up quotations for them. This allows them to work faster and, most importantly, leave behind an error-free quote with the customer. The biggest advantage for our dealers is that they do not need the headquarters anymore. In the past, the dealer needed a quote and had to contact the headquarters to ask whether a specific machine could be manufactured or not. This resulted in further negotiations about the different options, which could be included in the offer, but now the dealer can set up the right quote and directly discuss this with the customer. They can look the customer in the eye to see whether this is what the client needs, or if there is something else the customer wants. Altogether, a lot of time is saved, and the dealers can present an error-free quote directly to the customer.

Before we started using CPQ software, we often experienced problems, including many errors in the quotations, and this negatively affected our production and quotation process. These errors resulted in us having to reach out to the dealer, and the dealers had to communicate with the client to discuss certain possibilities within product combinations. Nowadays, everything is done correctly ranging from the quotation to the production process, and errors within these processes do not occur anymore.