With 4 growing locations, a breeding location, and a new tissue culture laboratory under construction, KP Holland is a well-known player in the floriculture industry. We recently spoke to Pim van der Knaap, Commercial Director, and Mariska Zuidgeest, Sales Support, about their use of Floriday, the way in which KP Holland works and the benefits of the platform. Read more in the interview.
KP Holland is busy working on the development and propagation of new varieties and growing Kalanchoe, Spathiphyllum, Curcuma, and small green plants. For KP Holland, it is important to ensure consistent, high quality of the products it produces. Since January, the second generation of this family business has taken a step back, allowing the third generation to focus fully on continuing the digitisation and automation of the company. “Our management team of five people sets the course, but we welcome advice based on the many years of knowledge and experience that exists within the company,” says Pim.
Starting with Floriday
KP Holland has been involved in Floriday from the start and Pim remarks how he has been a fan from day one. Mariska has been working hard on the implementation: “In the beginning, we certainly had the usual difficulties. With help from Floriday and SDF, though, things ultimately worked out well. We attended some workshops and support was always available to us.”
From entering orders to supply management
The vast majority of products produced by KP Holland reach customers via direct trade. KP Holland is now using almost all of the functions in Floriday. Pim explains their old method of working: “It was a lot of work for us in the office to type out all the orders that arrived by telephone, email or fax, and there was a high risk of making mistakes. We wanted to automate this process as much as possible.” The new method using Floriday helps with this. Mariska: “The orders arrive in SDF and the trade items are managed via Floriday. This works very clearly in terms of switching supply on and off. Instead of entering orders, we are managing supply more now. This makes it really convenient and reduces the risk of errors.”
More contact with buyers
“In the early days, we felt that customers were not yet really ready for it. That meant we had double the work, namely the old way of working and keeping the supply properly up to date. More and more customers are switching to Floriday now. We also regularly speak to our customers to find out what it looks like from their end. You can learn a lot from that,” says Mariska.
KP Holland is trying a variety of ways to motivate their buyers. Pim has this to say about that: “Since 1 October, we have been charging a certain group of customers a small fee for entering the order manually if it comes from outside Floriday. This works very well. For some customers, it is certainly possible to use Floriday to place orders. With other customers, we agree a time scale to give them the chance to get everything in place with KP Holland within the agreed time. This partly depends on their software package.”
Wishes
“The roadmap is a really good step. I check it regularly to add a thumbs-up to wishes that would also be useful for KP Holland. As it happens, we discovered another wish ourselves last week in terms of contracts. It would be a great addition for us to be able to generate contracts in PDF format, so that we can easily pass them on to the shop floor,” says Mariska.
Professionalisation of the sector
Pim and Mariska expect that everyone will now be switching to working with Floriday as soon as possible and that buyers will have their links ready. Pim: “Floriday makes life easier for both us and our customers. This is a leap forward in the way the sector works. Previously, there was no reason to change, even though it was certainly necessary when you compare it to other sectors. This means that you professionalise further as a sector.”