Schindler: The company was founded in Switzerland in 1874. It has nearly 150 years of tradition in the production and installation of passenger lifts, as well as escalators and travellators. The company has been present in Poland for almost 30 years. Schindler devices move over one billion people a year just in Poland.
Schindler’s strategy is based on 3 pillars:
– strong brand,
– strong team,
– strong organization.
Quick Response Manufacturing
at Schindler
Strategy and related challenges:
In 2014, Schindler adopted a new company development strategy. According to various estimates, Schindler ranked third among several suppliers, and internal organisational processes in the area of offer preparation, sales and customer service were not efficient enough.
The 30/30/30 strategy, expressed as a desire to gain a correspondingly large market share, meant that within a maximum of three years, the company was to become the undisputed leader in its industry. Schindler was meant to achieve:
- at least a 30% market share for new installations at new facilities,
- at least a 30% share in replacing old installations with new ones,
- at least 30% of the company’s revenue to come from the website.
In addition: increase of the Customer Satisfaction Index (NPS) to 60% and the Employee Engagement Index (SEES) to 80%.
To achieve the planned strategic results, Schindler decided to implement the Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) method.
Winning thanks to quick offer preparation
One of the company’s biggest problems was that it needed too much time to prepare offers. The company heard from its customers that they had to wait too long to receive an offer. The market for passenger lifts, escalators and platforms is quite complex, and the process of matching the offer to the customer’s expectations is usually very time-consuming and involves many people. Offers for solutions in this industry can be to 1,800 pages long!
„For major projects, in addition to us, several other companies are able to provide solutions. There
aren’t many players, but the competition is very strong. If another player wins a project, and it took
us a long time to prepare the offer, all this work is counted as a loss. I wanted to minimise these
losses and win as many orders as possible”: said Paweł Wierzbicki, CEO of Schindler Polska.
What did the analysis show?
That the department responsible for preparing offers had the potential to work faster and more efficiently. The company received many enquiries, which salespeople prioritised. Teams focused on the enquiries worth the most. However, these required the greatest involvement in the preparation of the offer. This resulted in less-important enquiries waiting in a long queue, which repeatedly led to their loss, or had a negative impact on the opinion of potential customers. It was a paradox – through poorly organised work, enquiries that could be handled quickly and according to standardised activities waited too long, and sometimes weren’t seen to at all.
QRM not only for production – it also worked in the service process
QRM showed that instead of acquiring resources, you can free them up by changing the model of operation. The project identified the strategic segment in terms of turnover and growth potential. The activities focused on this segment, because the offer-preparation procedure was the most-complicated here. In addition, segments were separated out in which salespeople could easily operate in a standardised manner (for example, the residential construction segment). In this area, the process of offer preparation could consist of fixed elements.
At the outset, MCT measurements for the preparation of the offer and documentation were only at 3%. As a result, in some cases, the period from the day the enquiry was received to the day the offer was sent was over 100 days. After the implementation of QRM, this time has been shortened multiple times.
The implementation of QRM has confirmed one of the theories, which assumes the freeing up of the potential of resources by creating interdisciplinary teams focused on serving specific categories of orders.
The following teams were created at the company:
- a team for handling large projects,
- a modernisation team responsible for the execution of orders for customers seeking
maintenance services.
The project was completed in under a year.
What benefits did Schindler gain by implementing QRM?
„I break down the benefits into those that relate to work organisation, and those of a business nature
expressed as indicators and customer satisfaction. To me, the most-important result is that the same team that three years ago had a turnover of EUR 7 million, now reaches EUR 40 million, without being
overloaded with work. This result is accompanied by a clear increase in customer satisfaction. Today,
our offers are made on time. We’re able to deliver them as the first on the market. This gives us a
clear advantage, because by acting faster than others, we’re able to conduct a dialogue with
customers at the offer stage. This way, it’s us who set the standards for the industry, not our
competitors.” – said Paweł Wierzbicki
What Schindler achieved (some selected benefits):
- Achieving strategic objectives – Schindler has become the undisputed leader in the industry.
- Satisfied customers.
- A very high level of recognition of customer needs.
- Improving the quality of customer service contributes to an increase in sales dynamics at a level of 100% annually.
- Improved efficiency – an almost 6x increase in turnover over three years with the participation of a similar team composition.
- 98% of offers delivered on time.
- Shortened response time to enquiries. The number of offers submitted has increased by 55%.
- Better communication in the team and between teams at the company.
- Visualisation of the offer process – all of its stages can be measured. Both the team and the managers have quick and accurate insight into what’s happening in the process.
„The scale of Schindler’s success is reflected in various measures. One of these is the fact that in 2017,
the company won all the tenders prepared by developers building shopping centres. Before the
implementation of QRM, this wouldn’t have been possible.” – said Paweł Wierzbicki.