Nassau Indus Deur

Sofon makes quotations independent of place and time


Jos Zwinkels
TECHNICAL COMMERCIAL ADVISOR


5 questions for a Sofon User


1 What does Nassau Indus Deur do?

“Nassau Indus Deur is the result of a merger of two companies: Nassau Deur and Indus Deur. Both companies were active in the area of doors for the industrial market since the seventies. In 2000 we decided to pool our strengths. As part of Nassau Door, we are one of the biggest door manufacturers in Europe. Our doors are made at our Danish branch. The other branches concentrate on sales and servicing (placement, maintenance) of industrial doors.”  


2 What does Nassau Indus Deur use Sofon for?  

“We use Sofon to configure industrial doors and to generate the sales documents that go with them. This is a big change compared to the original situation. Previously, Nassau Deur was already using a configurator, but Indus Deur wasn’t. They were still doing things by hand with a calculation notepad; a notepad on which all measurements, numbers and calculations were written down. Prices were looked up in a price book and text was copied from existing documents. In short: a lot of manual work with a high risk of mistakes. After the merger of Nassau Deur and Indus Deur, we decided to purchase Sofon. Thanks to Sofon we now sell only doors that meet demands and are also technically possible to produce.”


3 What did Nassau Indus Deur achieve with Sofon?

“Using Sofon, we have achieved time savings of 80% in the whole process. This was possible because there is now so much less manual work in the process. In the past, there was a lot to be looked up and quotations had to be checked before they were sent out. This is now no longer necessary. Our quotations are really always error-free and if they contain an error, this is always due to the human factor, e.g. because a colleague supplied Sofon with the wrong input. But this type of mistake is easily corrected.”


4 You are on the road a lot, how do you use Sofon when not in the office?

“I could take Sofon with me on my laptop and produce the quotation on location at my clients’ offices, as some other Sofon clients actually do. But in practice, it is not practical for me to walk around with my laptop on company premises. I always bring along a copy of the quotation for my customer. I note any changes on paper and work these out later in Sofon, after which Sofon automatically brings the whole quotation up to date, including calculations. When the customer agrees to a quotation, it is turned into an order. Our branch in Denmark is then asked to produce the door.”


5 What were the biggest changes before and after Sofon?

“A big change for me is that I can do my job independently of place and time. I can now, for example, work from home. But it is also possible to produce a quotation in my car! For this, only one phone call to the office is needed in which I pass on all the data to a colleague. He or she then produces a conveniently arranged quotation in Sofon. This was unthinkable in the past.”