Project uitgelicht : PostNL

Featured Project: PostNL Euro Mail from Waddinxveen is the digital sibling of PostNL, formerly known as TNT. Euro Mail is engaged in direct mail and direct marketing. The latest development involves offering a customer portal through which the end customer can independently assemble and directly send out their mailings.

Customers can make their selection from the product range offered on the website www.drukwerkservice.nl.

There are 13 basic products, accompanied by a wide variety of paper types, different kinds of envelopes, finishes, binding methods, shipping methods, addressing methods, and packaging options.

The variety of final products that can be assembled via this portal runs into the millions. The number of knowledge rules involved is substantial. Not all products can be made with all types of paper; different papers require different inks, and production methods are not usable for all products, etc.

Excel is not the right tool for managing the product range

It quickly became clear to Euro Mail that Excel was not going to be the right tool for managing the product range. At the beginning of 2011, it was decided to purchase Merkato from Quootz for managing the product range and feeding the website www.drukwerkservice.nl among others. Entering the options and business rules was completed within a few weeks. In the industry in which Euro Mail operates, calculations are made with extreme precision.

Some factors that are taken into account include:

• The weight of the ink and staples used.
• The technical capabilities of the available machines.
• Volume discounts.
• Filling levels of the rolls.
• Transport options (how many boxes fit on a pallet with a certain stacking method?).
• Postage methods for different packaging to different countries. Many hours of management saved Charmed by the capabilities and user-friendliness of Merkato, it was quickly decided to also include all these calculations directly and fully in the business model. The result is a model optimized for a multitude of parameters to achieve the sharpest possible price. The portal-dependent product range can be managed very simply via the web interface. This saves many hours of management and allows for on-the-spot responses to market changes.

Both Euro Mail and Quootz are very enthusiastic about the collaboration. Quootz is grateful for the valuable input from Euro Mail. Euro Mail is very pleased with the flexibility and engagement of the Quootz team, particularly impressed by how seemingly impossible challenges were consistently solved by the technical team. For both parties, this project has created a clear win-win situation and laid the foundation for a long-term collaboration, in which various new and existing plans will be realized.