Help for skilled trades in the cloud
As a corporate start-up of the Würth Group, Würth Cloud Services GmbH (WCS) is fully dedicated to digitalizing skilled trades. Their networked software solutions enable firms to concentrate fully on their core business, gaining valuable time and optimizing processes and organization long-term.
“We want to work in close cooperation with AW KG to further strengthen Würth’s self-image as a partner to the skilled trades,” says WCS Managing Director Justus de Maizière. The main foundation for this is the modular towio cloud platform and its associated apps. These applications can be used quickly and easily on laptops and mobile devices. What’s more, every company can compile and install the app landscape that is right for them – depending on which areas of digitalization are to be covered.
The basic app modules alone make it possible to digitalize a wide range of processes:
- Order processing: creation of offers, orders, invoices, and other documents.
- Materials management and procurement: processing of orders, incoming and outgoing goods movements, and warehouse management.
- Documentation: service reports with photo documentation on site as well as saving of documents and structured project communication thanks to a messenger.
- Planning and control of projects, internal resources, and employees.
- Time logging: simple logging, including overtime, vacation, and sick days.
“Perfectly thought out”
“A clear thumbs-up to towio. The perfectly thought out program for skilled trades leaves no questions or requests unanswered, even for small firms. It can be easily adapted to every need, employees can be integrated, the program is self-explanatory, the costs are moderate, and support is really very fast and competent! Since switching to towio, our daily work has improved significantly and the mountains of paperwork on my desk have shrunk greatly.”
Ralf Kronfeld Owner of Elbe-Kälte Ralf Kronfeld
The aim of WCS is to develop the Software as a Service (SaaS) business model for the Würth Group. A further goal is to strengthen ties to existing skilled trade customers of the Würth Group by integrating even more closely with their business processes. This is made possible by the use of towio, as the platform has been proven to increase productivity in trade businesses. Faster processing of orders from end customers makes it possible to accept more inquiries, which at the same time increases material requirements. The placement of other customer loyalty tools from the world of systems and services has shown that product sales grow disproportionately as a result. “This positive effect is to be further increased by towio,” adds Justus de Maizière.
“What is key to success is that we are as close as possible to existing and future customers and their processes. This allows us to continuously develop and optimize our solutions based on the needs of the users,” he continues. Accessing the target group of skilled trades is made significantly easier due to our long-standing relationships and the strong trust in the Würth Group. This gives us a critical competitive advantage on the software market that we must continue to exploit.
The towio platform addresses skilled trade firms with up to 20 employees. As you know, there are always exceptions to the rule. The “towio powered by Würth” platform has been available for this target group since May 2, 2022. Ongoing changes and adjustments were made to it in the pilot phase, ensuring good integration into the Würth world. This means that orders can be placed in the Würth online shop directly from towio without having to log in again. In addition, the app store for e-services from Würth has been restructured and expanded.
Since the spin-off of WCS in November 2020, the towio team has grown to over 30 members from twelve companies. More than half of the team members work in software development. Added to this are product management, customer service and support, and marketing, spread between the Berlin and Amberg sites.
