Marco Guyt has been working at exporters Grotex GmbH for almost 25 years. He looks after buying and selling the plants, which he does every day using the Floriday screens. "I can tell that we need to go digital more and more. So as soon as Floriday went live, we immediately started working through the platform, too. As a result, we need to make fewer calls and by working with offers, we save time."
Marco works with his brother Marcel in the office. He started out working on the boxes and moved to sales within Grotex GMBH six years ago. For the last year he has worked in the role of manager, so he has also taken on administrative duties. We asked him about trade, contact with growers and customers, and how he sees the future with Floriday.
Next day delivery
Marco: "Grotex GmbH was founded in about 1990, by Konrad Grote, which is how the company gets its name. The company started in Bleiswijk but soon moved to Honselersdijk. We have grown since then and now focus on exporting plants to Germany."
The team at Grotex GmbH is small and friendly. Two employees work in the boxes making a total of four in the company. Customers can count on Grotex GmbH, and Marco says they deliver to their customers within 24 hours. "I call our customers every morning together with Marcel and by about 11 o'clock everything is sorted. We make sure the products are on their way to the customer within 24 hours of ordering. We can supply any product, and always go for the best quality at the right price. For years now we have been working with a fixed group of growers and regular customers."
Buying at auction on Floriday
"We start purchasing early in the morning via the auction and Floriday. We call around 40 customers to get the orders done. We also work a day ahead and see which products are worth offering. Ordering is all done through Floriday now. Once ordered, we sort out deliveries using our software package. The link with Floriday makes this much faster than before we started working with the Floriday screens.”
Working faster thanks to the platform
Since Floriday was launched, Grotex GmbH has switched to placing orders only through the platform. "To start with we had to call them a lot. But in end going digital has worked fine and ordering through the platform is faster. We order from our regular growers through My Shop. We have agreed with the growers we work with to have stock available in My Shop. If we can't find something there or are looking for something different, we search by name or colour in My Shop. Offers in My Store means we save ourselves around 5 hours each week. We used to do everything over the phone, writing it all down and then entering it manually afterwards, but that isn't necessary any more.
"If something isn't available, I look for stock on Explorer. I also check out Explorer if I hear about a new product or something about a product I don't know yet, and drive round the growers to get to know them and see the quality of the products."
Future of digitisation
We also ask Marco how he views going digital. "We want to do more with the Exporter module in future, and manage our customer order lists through Floriday. We have done this in the past, but it's not a priority just now. For now, the important thing is that I can order as soon as possible, and that works like a dream. Sometimes a rule or the delivery time is not right for a grower. I recommend growers keep their stock up to date on Floriday. Then we can be sure it is available and no corrections or calls are needed."