The mission at Kramp is to enable customers to work more easily and efficiently. It’s a philosophy that helped transform a one-man operation from Varsseveld, Netherlands, into one of the largest technical wholesalers in Europe. As a one-stop supplier for spare parts, technical services, and business solutions, Kramp is a strategic partner for agricultural, landscaping, and forestry companies, as well as operating equipment manufacturers. Active in 19 countries across Europe, Kramp currently has 40,000 happy customers
The company values technological breakthroughs and continually invests in innovation and optimization to improve the success of its customers. Its goal is to be an industry game-changer, especially when it comes to delivering service easily and efficiently to customers.
“As a wholesaler, it’s all about adding value. This means that in this era of digital transformation, we constantly need to work on smart logistic concepts, efficiency, and agility to offer an easy yet excellent customer experience,” says Binne Visser, director HR and Internal Communication.
Investing in growth.
Kramp’s ambitions are aimed at organic growth and becoming the market leader in every region in which it operates. In countries where the company has not yet achieved this position, or is not yet active, it grows through acquisitions. To support these goals for expansion from an HR perspective, Kramp turned to Workday.
Kramp’s traditional HRIT system did not provide the right foundation for international growth and was fragmented due to past mergers and acquisitions. The lack of global processes and the limited insight into its workforce made Kramp feel that its old system wasn’t future-proof. This led the company to search for a more innovative system.
“Taking our growth ambitions into account, we must continue to invest in logistics, technology, and people,” explains Visser. “This also meant we had to enter the next phase from an HR perspective. We needed to invest in both the development and competencies of current employees, as well as the recruitment of new talent. To be able to develop your people, you need insights into talent and engagement. Therefore, it’s logical to have just one HR system with all of this information combined.”
A more advanced system.
The Kramp team had a few key criteria for its new HR system. It wanted a system that was scalable, intuitive, and easy to integrate as the company acquired new companies or opened new branches. In addition, it was looking for a system from a market leader that would be future-proof and support a digital mind-set, while also improving effectiveness and efficiency. The system had to fit Kramp’s principle of “it’s that easy,” offering ease of use for all employees across the organization, regardless of their role or level. And finally, the team wanted a system that was easy to maintain, without needing to hire consultants to implement small changes. Workday checked all these boxes.
Kramp was further attracted to the Workday Power of One concept—one version of software, one customer community, and one codeline. This would enable Kramp, as a midsize enterprise, to leverage best practices from market leaders across the globe. “The preconfigured business processes in Workday helped us further professionalize our HR business and processes—rather than forcing us to start from scratch and customize a solution,” says Visser.
Kramp deployed Workday Human Capital Management within eight months, replacing five disparate HR applications. “During our deployment we took great advantage of Workday Community and the regular check-ins from Workday,” says Visser. “This helped us identify new opportunities for process improvements.”
HR transformation.
Thanks to Workday, HR at Kramp has seen a significant transformation. Since many transactions are now self-service, HR has shifted from simply executing tasks to being a strategic business partner. And as the company grows, the scalability of the system allows the HR team to do more without hiring extra people.
“The analytics within Workday are extremely useful. You can look up answers to every question you receive from the organization,” says Visser. “And due to the business process framework, everyone will only get the insights that are relevant to them, which helps from a security perspective.”
Future plans.
Visser confirms that Kramp is among the 98 percent of satisfied Workday customers. Workday has already enabled Kramp to transform the organization into a digitally minded, people-driven organization with a single HR system across Europe but there is more to come. “We feel that we are only in the beginning of a great journey and we know that there are a lot more opportunities for us in the future. We look forward to the future with Workday,” says Visser.
“Even more important than the initial business case is the storytelling that comes with Workday,” says Visser. “If we want our employees to embrace change and to transform, we need to set the right example. And that’s exactly what we have done with Workday. It’s that easy.”