Emons - From Tradition to Future

FROM TO TRADITION

FROM TO TRADITION FUTURE

Tilo Hergarten, Head of Digitalisation at Emons, talks through some of the exciting digital projects he has been recently spearheading.

TILO HERGARTEN JOINED EMONS IN 2021 AS HEAD OF DIGITALISATION, WHICH SOON BECAME EMONS | DIGITAL. IT IS BASED ON THREE PILLARS, WHICH TILO DESCRIBES

AS FOLLOWS, “THE FIRST PILLAR IS DIGITAL AND CULTURAL

TRANSFORMATION.

he goal of this pillar is to share knowledge of what digitalisation means in terms of identifying and developing new (digital) business model ideas within the company, as well as how it affects us as a society, with changing behaviours and how we adapt to meet customer needs. We can either transform our products and services, or we can create new ones. By creating, testing

and developing new business model ideas, we can harness the benefits ourselves, and then bring them to the external market.”

This leads us to the second pillar, which refers to the structured incubation program at Emons | DIGITAL. Tilo continues, “We are always looking for new business model ideas from our internal colleagues. People can apply for the Emons | DIGITAL incubation

program by creating a pitch to be presented to the digital board, which then decides which team will go into the program.”

The incubation program itself is structured into three phases:

1. Identifying a need or a problem to be solved from a customer perspective

2. Creating a prototype, and testing it to see if a solution can be found

3. If successful, launching it onto the market and scaling it from there.

Tilo adds, “Between each of these phases, the teams need to do a pitch to make sure they can enter into the next phase, as we can always decide not to continue with a project. It is all based on the KPIs we are setting. If there is insufficient validation for a project, it will be discontinued.”

“Emons was established in 1928 and has almost 100 years of history and culture. As such, the goal of looking for new digital business models, strategically developing them, and putting them out onto the market is not common practice for SME”

The third pillar is acceleration. Tilo says, “With all the projects we internally identify, we are looking for technology partners. We are specifically wanting to identify which technology providers can help us because we are a transport and logistics company, not a software developer. We need our partners to co-create the products with us from a technical perspective because they have the experience. In the end, there is potential for them to have a financial benefit too. For example, in terms of a revenue sharing model. That also ensures their long-term commitment.”

Emons was established in 1928 and has almost 100 years of history and culture. As such, the goal of looking for new digital business models, strategically developing them, and putting them out onto the market is not common practice for SMEs. Tilo explains, “This is why the first pillar was so important to me. We needed to find a way to respect the company’s history and culture whilst looking to see how we could create new things based on the

digital environment. This kind of transformation is a challenge for many SMEs with a similar kind of history to ours.”

A fourth pillar would therefore be to externalise what Emons | DIGITAL is doing internally, giving other SMEs the chance to run through the incubation

program and start to innovate. Tilo adds, “We are role models for many SMES in terms of our digital transformation journey. We were recently awarded a Digital X Award in the category Digital Transformation for SMEs.”

Going back to the third pillar, Tilo highlights some of the exciting

“Schunck has good connections to other potential customers, and if we are onboarding new customers, we have good links to Schunck as an insurance company, so it is a win-win situation for both of us”

DIGITAL SOLUTIONS FOR YOUR INSURANCE COVER

The SCHUNCK GROUP is the leading insurance broker for the logistics industry in Germany. As a special service, SCHUNCK provides customers with IT solutions specially tailored to the respective industry and customer requirements.

Our IT solutions and digital applications range from a customer portal for digital contract and claims management to fleet management systems and software for claims processing or certificate management. These state-of-the-art IT solutions are developed by highly qualified IT experts with many years of industry know-how and can be individually integrated into the systems of SCHUNCK customers, for example via interface (API).

With MySCHUNCK, we are setting standards in terms of digital contract and insurance management as well as customer usability. MySCHUNCK makes the complex world of insurance more understandable for our customers and is simple, clear, fast and secure. In addition to the digital overview of all insurance documents and contract management, our customers can also report claims directly online via the portal. As a central access point to all SCHUNCK IT applications, MySCHUNCK ensures cross-device, mobile access to all their insurance documents and policy documents - in multiple languages.

As a special broker for logistics, SCHUNCK offers the possibility to book insurances for all your transports online around the clock with the application EPAS (electronic premium registration system). Easily and quickly created and clearly documented.

The accompanying documents are immediately available and the premium calculation is also carried out in real time. Extensive reporting functions enable quick and easy evaluation of all data. As everywhere in the logistics industry, every minute counts. This makes it all the more important to be

able to generate the right insurance cover immediately.

Certificates of existing insurance cover often play an important role in transports. With Certificates Web, SCHUNCK also offers an innovative IT solution for this purpose, with which our customers can independently create and forward accompanying documents as insurance certificates, regardless of time and place.

No matter how much care is taken - with the large number of journeys made by forwarders and carriers, an accident can unfortunately never be completely ruled out. With PHOENIX, SCHUNCK provides an IT solution with which transport and traffic liability claims can be registered online and conveniently managed.

Simple recording, administration and evaluation of claims - all this is made as easy as possible for SCHUNCK customers with PHOENIX - through fast processing by means of direct entry and assignment of a claim number. Permanent access to the current status of claims processing and payment as well as claims analyses on quotas, history, policy debit and premiums provide the perfect overview at all times. We also offer a modern interface for claims notifications, which you can integrate into your own system.

With SCHUNCK you are more than just insured!

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SCHUNCK GROUP

projects that Emons | DIGITAL is currently working on in partnership with Quality Hosting, Schunck, and Logo Consult. Tilo says, “As we are a digitalisation department within Emons, we are supporting the core business with digital transformation, transformation management, and change management etc.

The implementation of Microsoft 365 across the whole business is

internal, manual effort is enormous. To avoid this, we have developed Click & Claim to make claims processing as simple as possible, highly automated and transparent. This enables us to report claims much faster to our insurance broker, which, for us, is Schunck. With the gathered data, we will be able to analyse the occurring damages in terms of packaging, handling etc, and

a challenge, so Quality Hosting is strongly supporting us with that.”

Another project addresses, which is currently in the spin-off process, is called Click & Claim. It addresses the internal problem Emons has been experiencing with transport management. Tilo explains, “Transport damages occur in every logistics company and cause frustration among customers due to long processing times and complicated reporting procedures. In addition, the

come up with individual and specific suggestions in order to avoid damages in the future.”

Tilo says the solution that Emons | DIGITAL is building with the help of its partner will be of interest to other transport and logistics companies across Europe. He elaborates, “There is great potential for the external market. We are in the middle of the last phase, and the product is already set for internal use. We will then bring it out onto the market

“The implementation of Microsoft 365 across the whole business is a challenge, so Quality Hosting is strongly supporting us with that”

Tailor-made solutions & Additional services for your specific IT, Cloud & Security needs.

together with Schunck. They have good connections to other potential customers, and if we are onboarding new customers, we have good links to Schunck as an insurance company, so it is a win-win situation for both of us. We always like to share our projects with our partners because I strongly believe in cocreation and innovation. I think you will get the best results if you work on something together, with

friendly. We took the database and digitalised it because the product descriptions are often not intuitive. As a regular user, you may write out the wrong description from a customs perspective, perhaps making it too technical. We used AI to match the information to the technical description to get the right results. We want the company producing the goods to not have to spend too much

different insights and different perspectives.”

Also at the same phase is another project called Custify that Tilo and his team are working on around customer tariff numbers. Tilo continues, “You have to look up a tariff number for any goods you are producing to be able to ship them overseas through customs. It is a lot of hard work to get hold of these numbers because the process is not digital, and especially not user-

time identifying the right tariff numbers.”

Logo Consult is Emons | DIGITAL’s long-term technology partner when it comes to CRM systems. Tilo elaborates, “Based on the technology and innovation that Logo Consult is providing, we can understand our customers in terms of the goods they are shipping, their industries, and whether the historic data suggests we should strengthen or step away from the relationship.

“Logo Consult help us in our daily business to avoid mistakes and to increase the efficiency of our operations”

We can therefore use external data and market trends to have a better understanding going forward. Logo Consult help us in our daily business to avoid mistakes and to increase the efficiency of our operations.”

As for the future scope of Emons | DIGITAL, Tilo is excited by a number of trends and technologies that are currently gathering pace. He explains, “I am really curious about the future of transportation. For example, will our fleets be

diesel in the years to come, or will they, for example, use hydrogen fuel cells? Bringing more sustainability into transportation is a priority, so we are looking at how we can achieve this by using the new technology that is available.”

The company has also been exploring new technologies and trends that increase efficiency in different ways. Tilo adds, “It will be interesting to see what the future will look like. Will truck drivers be able to work from home by steering their vehicles

remotely? The important point to remember is that a lot of these projects have the end goal of making life easier for the customer. The customer perspective is key, and their needs must be addressed as soon as possible.”

The sender of a delivery also has expectations which can

be improved upon through digitalisation. Tilo explains, “Logistics has not changed very much over the last few decades. With new digital business models, a lot of changes are now taking place, so how can we make it simpler for someone who wants to send something? We are researching AR technology

“We are looking at the whole market, how we are participating in it, and the role we will play in the future”

Our Maxime: Make it simple

It is generally the simple things that are successful. We have been a partner to the logistics industry for more than 100 years!

We make the complex insurance business unders tandable for you and we make your world simpler.

100 % customer focus, full commitment to the best insu rance solution and top service – that’s SCHUNCK.

SCHUNCKMore than just insured

The SCHUNCK GROUP is a member of Ecclesia Group.

to facilitate the process of sending goods.”

The new digital business models are changing how things will be done in terms of customer relations, sales, marketing, and a whole host of other business operations. Tilo concludes, “We are looking at the whole market, how we are participating in it, and the role we will play in the future. Our focus will be to continue to come up with our own ideas, which we could potentially bring out onto the market.”

For further information on Emons, visit www.emons.com www.emons-digital.de

“Our focus will be to continue to come up with our own ideas, which we could potentially bring out onto the market”

www.emons.com www.emons-digital.de