B2B Digital Transformation Bringing Customers and VELUX Closer

VELUX is a Danish manufacturing company that specializes in roof windows and skylights. The first VELUX roof window was installed in a Danish school over 75 years ago by the founder of the company, Villum Kann Rasmussen. The company has been steadily growing since.

With 27 production sites in 10 countries and sales companies in 40 countries, VELUX products are widely available. We employ 11,500 people and our company is headquartered north of Copenhagen in Denmark.

The partnership between VELUX and Valtech for their B2B digital transformation was a match made in heaven.

For VELUX, as for many traditional manufacturers of products sold through third-party distribution channels, figuring out the needs of the end-customers is a constant struggle. As the end-customer doesn’t purchase the products at the manufacturer themselves, there’s typically no contact with the end-customer, and worse yet: the business objectives much too easily gravitate towards the B2B channel, which constitutes the direct source of revenue of the manufacturer.

With the advent of the Internet, the untenability of this situation became even clearer for VELUX and their B2B-manufacturing peers. Online, end-customers engage extensively in the presales research processes and expect relevant information—if not entire end-to-end shopping environments— to be readily available, not only from resellers, but also from the B2B manufacturers themselves. Online, manufacturers are, for better or worse, directly exposed to the demands, wishes and desires of end-customers. Online, competition from new market entrants drives down prices, often squeezing out middlemen and exposing the manufacturer directly to the demands of the customers.

“We work with many consultants in VELUX, but we seldom meet consultants that exhibit such a high level of business acumen while simultaneously rolling up their sleeves to deliver practical results. Valtech has proven themselves trusted colleagues from the very beginning. They are what I would call strategic pragmatists.” Lisbeth Meng Collignon, Senior Director, VELUX

For traditional B2B manufacturers, this shift to digital calls for a reconstruction of the relationship between customer, distributor and the manufacturer themselves. And in particular, it calls for the manufacturer to get a much more detailed picture of who the customers are, what their customer journeys look like, and how they’re best triggered into buying or engagement.

To meet the challenge and have the end-customer reinstated as a primary driver of VELUX marketing activities, VELUX had to embark on a digital transformation process, consisting of a wide array of activities.

First, to gain the necessary flexibility and enabling VELUX to maneuver in the fast-changing landscape of customer expectations, VELUX needed a slim and agile organization, reconsidering roles and breaking down silos.

Second, Velux also needed a new technological setup for handling customer insights from the digital channels. And a new way of working with and activating the online signals and findings from and about the customers, to better reach and connect with them.

We’ve helped VELUX identify the work functions that would need to be performed by VELUX staff, and the ones which would be handled better by external contributors. The closer to the core business a function was deemed, the more it should be insourced. Conversely, the closer to general market objectives a function was deemed, and the more temporary the needs were, the more it could be outsourced.

Aligning the organization also meant working with VELUX in order to break down silos and create a transparent relationship between internal organizational structures, encouraging collaboration.

On the tech side, we’re proud to have helped VELUX implement a state-of-the-art Google 360 analytics platform, allowing VELUX to gain a unified and 360-degree view of the customer and an ability to operate global online operations across markets, perform advanced machine learning analysis, set up corporate guidelines for measurement, identify customer journeys and manage campaigns and media spend in an increasingly fragmented digital environment.

Throughout the process, we’ve been—and still are—pleased to have been able to offer VELUX the flexibility of our services, allowing VELUX to draw on Valtech resources extensively for specific high-interest and out of the ordinary projects when needed.

And we’re grateful we’re able to keep an ongoing relationship which secures and develops our understanding of the VELUX business, and their business requirements. And help them onwards on a transformation journey, that most likely never ends.