Holmatro's Digital Transformation

Holmatro

The challenge

Holmatro is a global market leader in innovative hydraulic tools used in various critical applications, such as rescue operations, industrial processes, and special tactics. With evolving customer needs and market developments, Holmatro faces the challenge of modernizing its digital infrastructure and digitizing its customer and dealer interactions. This is necessary to operate more efficiently, improve customer satisfaction, and maintain their position as a market leader.

Strategic objective

The strategic objective of the partnership with Harborn is to achieve a digital transformation that not only enhances customer satisfaction but also improves real-time operational efficiency. By automating internal processes and digitizing customer interactions, Holmatro aims to strengthen its market position and become a pioneer in digital innovation within the industry.

Technologies

Python
Flutter
React
Cloud
Drupal
IoT / Bluetooth

Partnerships

Syncforce
Azure

Partnership & Co-Creation

Harborn and Holmatro work together as a multidisciplinary team. The team sets a clear roadmap and uses an agile methodology to achieve rapid, visible results. From the start, Holmatro is deeply involved in the co-creation process, with every step focused on solving specific challenges in the customer journey and operational processes.

Multidisciplinary Team & Roles

The team consists of strategists, UX designers, software engineers, and data engineers, with each discipline playing a crucial role in delivering an integrated solution. Strategists provide direction, UX designers optimize the user experience, software engineers develop the systems, and data analysts extract insights from the collected data.

Collaboration with Holmatro

Holmatro’s internal teams, including management and technical specialists, work closely with the multidisciplinary team. This collaboration ensures that strategic goals are translated into concrete digital solutions that seamlessly align with practical needs.

Case: Optimization of Website Performance in China

The Problem

The international growth of Holmatro requires a robust, multilingual website that is globally accessible and scalable. The website's performance in China was lacking, resulting in insufficient online representation of Holmatro in the region.

The Solution

Harborn sets up a multi-region cloud environment, delivering the website in China from local data centers. This not only ensures faster load times due to server proximity but also improves speed because the website is approved by local authorities.

Strategic Value

By complying with local regulations and implementing optimizations for speed and accessibility, Holmatro maintains its market position and can serve new customer segments worldwide.

Customer journey

The solution supports Holmatro's digital growth strategy by enhancing international discoverability and providing a central hub for customer information and product management.

Experience

During the development process, we work closely with Holmatro's employees in China and local authorities. This collaboration ensures all requirements are met to operate from a local data center.

Result

An optimized international website that offers a consistent user experience in China compared to other markets. This leads to improved load speeds, higher customer satisfaction, and broader accessibility. The load speed of full pages has improved by approximately 60%, providing a much smoother experience for users. The "time to first byte" has accelerated by about 90%, meaning the server responds much faster to user requests.

60%

improved loading speed

Case: Customer Portal

The problem

Holmatro needs a central platform to better serve its dealers and streamline their processes. The existing systems do not offer an easy way for dealers to create customized product configurations, view current inventory, and place orders quickly.

The solution

Harborn develops a customer portal that enables dealers to easily configure products, place orders, and track shipments. With its intuitive design, automated processes, and integrations with Holmatro’s internal systems, the portal provides 24/7 access to all relevant customer information and supports Holmatro’s internal sales processes.

Currently, the response time for a “more complex” quote is at 2-3 days. Now, it will only take me 10 minutes to complete the same task

Strategic Value

The portal increases customer satisfaction by enabling dealers to be served faster and more efficiently, contributing to better relationships and increased revenue opportunities through up-selling and cross-selling.

Customer journey

This solution supports Holmatro’s digital operations by digitizing dealer interactions and improving operational efficiency.

Experience

The portal is continuously tested with dealers to ensure that its features and navigation seamlessly fit into their daily workflows and needs.

Result

A user-friendly portal that allows dealers to place and track orders more quickly and accurately, resulting in higher efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Having such a tool available from all my suppliers would simplify my job a lot

Case: MyHolmatro app

The problem

Holmatro needs a way to monitor the deployment and maintenance status of its tools in real-time. Traditional methods are too slow and unclear, compromising safety and efficiency.

The solution

Harborn develops an IoT application that provides real-time insights into the performance and maintenance status of the tools. Users can remotely monitor devices, optimize resource utilization, and detect potential issues early. The app leverages Bluetooth connectivity and cloud integrations for data analysis.

Strategic Value

The IoT app adds a new layer of digital support, making Holmatro’s products more attractive and enabling new service propositions, such as predictive maintenance.

Customer journey

The solution strengthens Holmatro’s digital growth strategy by introducing a new service proposition that enhances the customer experience and supports proactive maintenance.

Experience

Firefighters and asset managers are intensively involved in the testing process to ensure the interface is quick and intuitive, even in high-stress situations.

Result

An IoT application that increases efficiency, optimizes tool utilization, and detects early maintenance issues, resulting in improved customer safety and cost savings.

Impact & Optimization

The partnership creates a structural transformation within Holmatro, where digital innovation is central to business operations. The solutions are scalable and flexible, enabling Holmatro to expand its digital proposition to new markets and applications.

Long-Term Solution

The digital solutions have improved Holmatro’s operational efficiency and increased customer satisfaction. With a robust cloud foundation, Holmatro can easily optimize and scale these solutions in the future.

Scaling & Optimization

Following the successful implementation of the initial projects, Holmatro is now exploring further digitalization opportunities, such as integrating new IoT devices and expanding the customer portal with new functionalities.

With the previous support tools, it took me 30 minutes to generate a quotation and gather all the necessary info. Using this portal for the first time reduced this task to just 3 minutes.

Conclusion

Harborn guides Holmatro in its digital transformation by developing strategic digital solutions, including a multilingual international website, a customer portal for dealers and a mobile IoT app for real-time monitoring. These solutions enhance operational efficiency, improve the customer experience, and strengthen Holmatro’s market position, laying the foundation for further growth and innovation.

Robert

Delivery Manager

How do you transform over time?

At Harborn, we believe that true change begins with addressing the right challenges. Our teams work as a ‘special force’ in experience, growth, and engineering to solve complex problems and achieve sustainable growth.

Have a question you'd like to explore? Robert, project lead of this case, is here to help bring your ideas to life!

31 10 436 50 50 robert.revet@harborn.com