The North American subsidiary of the KION Group, KION North America, has completely revamped its online portal for its dealer network. Against the backdrop of rapidly growing e-commerce, the creation of the new portal was equally important with the increased demands on warehouse management and material flow solutions.

Central to this is KION North America’s online portal for its dealer network, based on the Intershop Commerce Platform. Dealers and intermediaries can place and refine their orders here according to their authority levels and contracts, check current stock availability, and track delivery status. The sophisticated ordering functionality also allows them to quickly reorder and easily upload order forms. Users can collaborate on uploaded order templates and complete the information or add products. The system also offers users the ability to distinguish between “stock orders” and “emergency orders” during the purchasing process. Emergency orders are then placed with prioritized shipping. The tight real-time integration of the Intershop commerce solution with KION North America’s SAP ERP and CRM system enables them to support their business partners in real-time at all stages of the buying journey.

Dealers and intermediaries can also use the portal to view the current warranty status for the equipment they have purchased. If a dealer submits a warranty claim, it’s immediately displayed in KION North America’s Warranty Admin Portal, a second web-based application developed on Intershop technology and seamlessly connected to KION’s dealer portal. From there, sales and service staff can issue individual or collective approvals or reject a claim. In either case, the dealer’s website receives a direct notification of the status.

Daniel Schlegel, Vice President of Customer Service at KION North America, comments on the result as being “intuitive, efficient and populated with product images – the new portal creates benefits for everyone involved. It enables us to serve our dealers the way they demand it.”

Markus Klahn, CEO at Intershop, sums up the experience, “Our platinum partner, DSS Partners, completed this project in just five months. We leveraged the DSS Partners Intershop Accelerator Store (DIAS) and were, therefore, able to build two sophisticated portals in a short time. The recipe for success was – once again – a combination of the user-centric Intershop Commerce Platform, DSS’s experience with manufacturing and distribution customers, and our collective field-proven e-commerce best practices.”