Significant revenue growth in wholesale distribution: Holtzmann & Sohn puts AI to work in sales

ERP data that was hard to use strategically

Since 1898, the family-owned Holtzmann & Sohn GmbH has been a reliable partner to the skilled trades. The specialist wholesaler supplies trade and construction businesses with products for heating, plumbing, and civil engineering.

Owner-managed and mid-sized, with around 70 sales staff spread across several departments, 6 locations, and 900,000 products — Holtzmann & Sohn is a textbook example of Germany's mid-sized business sector. And like other mid-sized wholesalers, it faced a familiar set of challenges:

• Time-consuming customer visits: Field reps needed more than an hour to prepare for and follow up on a single appointment. The reason was a lack of visibility into the data—the BI tool only delivered static reports, the wealth of data sitting in the ERP system (Gevis, GWS) stayed out of reach, and in day-to-day business, sales reps could barely tell which customers carried churn risk or cross-sell potential.

• Inefficient collaboration: Inside sales and field reps communicated mainly by phone and email, sometimes with handwritten notes. Information ended up scattered, gaps opened up, and important tasks fell through the cracks.

• Knowledge silos: Insight into customer needs, risks, and potential stayed locked in employees‘ heads. It was too easy to lose and inaccessible to decision-makers and new colleagues alike—and ultimately, the customer relationship suffered for it.

For leadership, centralizing the team's knowledge and putting data to work on revenue-related questions became mission-critical: Where's the potential? Where's the risk? How do we make our sales proactive?

Holtzmann & Sohn decided to answer those questions with Plato.

Proactive sales, powered by AI insights

“I used to spend five hours a week preparing for and following up on customer visits, hunting down information, and coordinating quotes with inside sales. Now I check Plato right before an appointment and I'm fully prepared in two minutes: I see the real risks and opportunities with my customers, pass orders straight to inside sales with no detours, and the quote goes out the same day.”
Aleksander Lazic, Field Sales, Holtzmann & Sohn

Plato extends Holtzmann & Sohn‘s existing ERP system, so the sales team can work more proactively and efficiently.

The platform centralises Gevis order data along with the sales team's collective knowledge, and delivers AI-driven insight into risks and opportunities.

For Holtzmann & Sohn, the impact of this new way of working shows up in three key areas:

1. Revenue potential: sales runs on data, not gut feeling

Plato‘s AI analyses the ERP data and flags cross-sell potential or a customer‘s order pattern slowing down. Sales reps no longer wait for a customer to reach out — they know exactly which offers to bring to the table first.

2. Time savings: sales works hand in hand

Day-to-day sales at Holtzmann & Sohn is now much simpler, and inside sales and field reps work more closely together.

A field rep might summarise a customer visit by voice directly in Plato, or create a task that automatically prompts inside sales to draw up a quote on the platform.

3. Knowledge base: sales pools data and puts it to work strategically

With Plato, the team centralises its sales knowledge. Gone are the days of information gaps and digging through scattered emails and notes.

Pooling the data has strategic value: knowledge about customers, sales activity, and the market improves the quality of the AI‘s analysis and gives sales management a solid foundation to act on.

Live in 3 weeks: a fast ERP integration

Holtzmann & Sohn‘s IT department initially expected a heavy technical lift, given how complex the Gevis data structure is. In practice, the integration came with no notable extra burden. IT leadership was more than satisfied:

“Rolling out Plato wasn‘t a major IT project. The integration with our ERP was fast and professional. Within fou weeks, the platform was fully integrated and in use. It‘s the best-managed IT project I‘ve been part of.”
Ralf Kühnel, Head of IT, Holtzmann & Sohn

The first employees were trained within a week, so the wholesaler could start improving its sales right away.

Targeted performance gains

Plato delivers clear, measurable value for Holtzmann & Sohn. Decision-makers now have better visibility into performance — and can improve it in a targeted way.

Since rolling out this AI-driven approach to sales, the wholesaler has achieved:

• Significant revenue growth (exact figure withheld)

• 6 hours saved per employee, every week

• 80% daily active usage among roughly 70 trained employees