Blue Yonder: Supporting HORNBACH Baumarkt’s Transformation

Retail is a sector full of challenges, but also opportunity. 

Businesses must constantly focus on the needs of their customers, who want to be free to decide whether they shop in store or via smartphone or computer. 

Simultaneously, retailers should recognise potential for technological innovation if they want to achieve success and stay ahead of the competition. 

The key is to innovate, add new services and deliver experiences consumers love, but this is far easier said than done – not to mention expensive – when existing tech stacks simply weren’t built for modern experiences with efficiency in mind.  

HORNBACH Baumarkt, which operates DIY megastores with garden centres and online stores in nine European countries, can certainly relate to this particular challenge.

However, having decided to accelerate its omni-channel, customer-centric strategy, the firm selected the experience and know-how of Blue Yonder to ease the process. 

Why Blue Yonder?

HORNBACH Baumarkt is widely recognised as a pioneer in innovation and one of Europe’s leading DIY retailers.

The DIY retail segment accounts for the vast majority (94%) of consolidated sales for the company, with almost half of these sales generated in Germany. In fact, measured in terms of productivity, HORNBACH Baumarkt is the number-one DIY retailer in Germany based on sales per square metre of sales area, according to the calculation principles of the branch organisation. 

In addition to its physical stores, the retailer has an online business, including click and collect, which accounts for around 13% of total sales. HORNBACH Baumarkt offers an average of 50,000 items at its stationary stores and up to 290,000 items online.   

Given the strong customer-first culture and strategic relevance of its online sales, a decision was taken in recent months to optimise the omni-channel order experience from search through to purchase and delivery. 

HORNBACH Baumarkt chose Blue Yonder due to its differentiated approach to optimising omni-channel operations, deep understanding of the order process and unique vision and strategy for the future of the supply chain.     

“As part of our Interconnected Retail strategy, we prioritise customer satisfaction and continuously evaluate our processes to enhance the customer experience,” explains Nils Hornbach, Member of the Management Board at HORNBACH Baumarkt.

“Our internal assessment revealed the need for further development to improve order management across channels and provide a seamless omni-channel purchasing journey.

“After a thorough vendor evaluation, we selected Blue Yonder for their specialised expertise and market-leading order decisioning capabilities.”

HORNBACH Baumarkt looks to gain advantage

By selecting Blue Yonder Inventory and Commits Services, part of Blue Yonder Order Management solutions, HORNBACH Baumarkt will be better positioned to engage customers with reliable information at the beginning of their shopping journey.

The hope is that this will increase conversion and deliver more satisfying shopping experiences.  

Overall, the tool will allow HORNBACH Baumarkt to:  

• Empower customers with options, knowledge and choice, delivering a consistent and frictionless experience, thereby enhancing satisfaction
• Provide accurate, real-time, network-wide inventory visibility and availability across all channels
• Optimise order fulfilment, taking into accounts costs, capacity, time and other business parameters 
• Drive rapid innovation for customer-facing services, while modernising the tech stack.    

“Blue Yonder’s architecture and technology ensure rapid time-to-value, scalability and performance, making it our preferred choice to support our digital transformation journey,” continues Nils. 

“This will give us an advantage in inventory availability and fulfilment, creating high value for our customers.”

Optimising the customer journey

Moving forward, Blue Yonder’s flexible microservices-based solutions approach, embedded with AI and machine learning (ML), will help HORNBACH Baumarkt to optimise the entire omni-channel customer journey.

Ultimately, this begins with an engaging customer experience and extends right the way through to efficient order fulfilment. 

The retailer will also be able to accelerate its in-store and digital business to gain advantages through a model that supports rapid implementation.     

“HORNBACH Baumarkt is leading a game-changing transformation focused on customer-centricity and we’re proud to welcome them among our customers,” adds Gaël Ramaen, Vice President, EMEA Retail at Blue Yonder. 

“Blue Yonder Order Management solutions are engineered to scale, perform and operate under the highest volumes seen on the market. It can transform order management with an augmentative, composable approach, which delivers rapid time-to-market. 

“We can’t wait to support HORNBACH Baumarkt in speeding their ongoing digital transformation.”

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