7% more revenue with AI: DE Süd turns ERP data into sales potential

Gut feeling instead of data-driven decisions

DE Süd, a leading roofing materials distributor, faced the same challenge as many growing wholesalers in Germany: sales ran reactively, driven by gut feeling. Field reps relied on their own experience to decide which customer to approach with which offer, and when. If a customer started quietly drifting away, the team often only noticed by chance.

This gut-feeling approach to sales had a systemic cause:

• Data on customer relationships, product range, and sales history was scattered across different places — in sales reps‘ heads, on sticky notes, in emails, and in the ERP system.

• The ERP system had become the backbone of sales — and, at the same time, impossible to navigate. With over 100,000 SKUs and customers spread across 30 locations, the number of possible customer-product combinations ran into the billions.

• Making sense of that data took more time than day-to-day business allowed.

DE Süd‘s IT team had already discussed building an AI dashboard in-house, but that would have required dedicated development work and deep integration into day-to-day operations. IT was understandably cautious about adding yet another standalone tool.

The sales leadership had a clear goal: field reps needed to work more efficiently and use customer relationships more deliberately to drive revenue growth. But the solution couldn‘t be another isolated system bolted on top.

With Plato, DE Süd was set to get more than just an AI-powered dashboard.

Turning ERP data into revenue growth

Plato adds a sales intelligence layer on top of DE Süd‘s existing ERP system, supporting the entire sales organisation. It:

1. Consolidates customer, sales, and product data

2. Analyses it with AI, updated daily

3. Delivers concrete recommendations for inside sales, field reps, and sales management

Plato and DE Süd worked in close partnership from day one. The first tests already showed positive signals across the sales team, and DE Süd rolled out the solution company-wide within six weeks.

The results included:

Better customer visits, less effort

Field reps no longer need to research which product to offer a given customer next. Plato delivers the right cross-sell recommendations automatically, drawing on the data already available.

Voice-based documentation, on the spot

After a customer visit, field reps document it by voice — often right on the way back to the car — and let the AI summarise it immediately. This improves data quality and enables seamless collaboration: inside sales is informed right away and can send offers to the customer on the spot.

More visibility and control for sales leadership

With Plato‘s dashboard, sales leadership gets a clear, up-to-date view of what's actually happening across inside and field sales. They can spot at-risk customers day by day, prioritise accordingly, and coach regional teams where it matters most.

More structure, more revenue

With Plato, DE Süd now runs sales in a structured, systematic way. In under six months, the wholesaler achieved the following results:

• 7% more revenue through cross-selling potential and reduced customer churn

• Over 6 hours saved per sales rep, every week

• 87% of sales reps use Plato on average every week