Getting Pumped up for Digital Transformation

It all started with one water pump. That pump turned into a global, pioneering leader, producing more than 16 million pumps a year. That pioneering leader turned into a global sustainability contributor, saving electricity on a global scale with pioneering technologies. How did they get there? Persistent ambitions, a unique will to adapt and never just going with the flow (pun intended). That very DNA sent Grundfos on one of the largest and most ambitious digital transformation journeys in Danish history.

When Grundfos built their tech stack a decade ago, they were ambitious and ahead of their time. However, like a lot of proprietary legacy systems, it wasn’t built in a manner that made it ready to meet future needs and customer expectations. They had a multitude of digital touchpoints that were not aligned in terms of user experience or consistent branding. As e-commerce evolved and the needs of Grundfos’ customers changed accordingly, their platform became a massive pain point for the customers' experience. 

With a determination to provide Grundfos customers with a unified and positive experience, we collectively worked on a massive digital transformation project.

The path towards creating a more positive and unified customer journey, by necessity, began with understanding the needs of Grundfos’ different clients. Four of Grundfos’ main types of customers, and each type has a specific purpose and need when they enter the site:

• Wholesaler/Distributor: They need the site to provide the right information
  • “I need to order a batch of pumps. And I need to guide my customer to the right choice”
• Consulting Engineer: They need the site to reduce complexity:
  • “I want help to design a solution, find drawings, specifications and help for my quotation”
• Installer: They need help making the right choices
  • “I want to replace a product and I need installation guidance”
• Facility Manager: Needs the site to ensure peace of mind:
  • “I need to ensure my system is running optimal and get maintenance”

The goal was to create a system that directly addressed all of the individual needs of each customer while providing a supported, personalized and tailored experience. This type of system required data to function properly.

The three different pillars that make up Grundfos' digital presence is their product center (Online search and sizing tools), main website (Corporate information and services) and extranet (online product ordering). In their original system, each of these were siloed, containing its own set of data and structures and even unique brand imagery. The disjointed nature of these silos led to the disconnected experiences of customers.

Grundfos knew they had to rethink their digital platform strategy as scaling with personalization and marketing automation would be with major constraints on the existing platforms. With the digital architecture still dependent on various legacy systems, the entire ecosystem had to be redone from scratch, to be able to support the ambition of one seamless experience. 

By mid 2020, Valtech and Grundfos successfully rolled out 65 websites globally and increased global website traffic to the new Grundfos.com by 20%. Whereas the previous customer experience often hindered a smooth transition between platforms and systems, the new setup has not only increased the number of successfully completed customer journeys, but actually exceeded the goal set for 2020 by 41%.

Improving the customer journey is very important, and shows how the project hit important KPIs early on, but increasing orders is also crucial to success. Because marketing automation setup has been used to automate the process of following up on open/unfinished quotes, Grundfos has seen an astonishing 131% increase in their acceptance rate. Furthermore, their email open rate has grown from 16.4% in 2017 to 25.38% in 2020, accompanied by an increase in CTR from 2.3% – 3.93%. 

With the silos gone and a new agile way of working, there are no limitations to the future. The new architecture has enabled the entire Grundfos organization to work across organizational lines and technical setups, and with the infrastructure in place they now have a website that has enabled growth and will continue to do so.