"The best thing that happened to me this year": wholesaler Gerhard Mann digitizes its sales processes

Digitalization gaps put revenue at risk

Gerhard Mann GmbH & Co. KG is one of the leading regional suppliers to trade professionals in the Landshut area, covering bathrooms, tiles, steel, and energy. The wholesaler looks back on almost 100 years of history — and, like many other long-established mid-sized companies, ran into a familiar challenge:

The company hadn't deeply digitalized its sales processes, and that created a number of problems:

• There was no systematic way to manage sales or get real intelligence on it — the team struggled just to work out which customers should come first.

• Customer knowledge wasn't captured systematically. It lived in individual employees' heads, in emails, and in spreadsheets, which made it hard to access.

• As a result, employees had no 360-degree view of their customers, and field reps had to invest a lot of time just to prepare properly for a visit.

Managing director Benedikt Forsthofer saw the risk this created: if customers can churn unnoticed and only a handful of employees act proactively on sales opportunities, revenue growth suffers.

A first attempt to fix this fell short: a small CRM tool that never integrated into the existing workflows of inside and field sales. It quickly became dead weight. But the attempt helped the team define more precisely what the right solution needed to do:

Gerhard Mann was looking for a partner who would work hand in hand with the team and bring new technology into day-to-day sales quickly, without adding extra maintenance work.

That's what led to the decision to choose Plato as the platform for sales intelligence.

A sales cockpit for wholesale distribution

With Plato, Gerhard Mann gets AI-powered sales intelligence:

As a platform, it brings together data from the ERP system (Gevis/GWS) and puts it to work for the daily tasks of inside sales, field sales, and sales leadership.

For the sales team, Plato is a cockpit that lets them work proactively and by the data, instead of reactively and by gut feeling:

• Sales leadership gets visibility into the data and can lead the team more strategically — seeing where things are stuck, where the opportunities are, and how to support each rep.

• AI algorithms analyze customer, product, and sales activity data, flagging customers at risk of churning and revenue opportunities through cross-selling.

• Sales reps get a 360-degree view of their customers, backed by insight from that data analysis.

Plato also simplifies day-to-day sales work by significantly cutting down the effort spent on routine tasks. Here's how Gerhard Mann's sales reps use it:

• Field reps prepare for customer visits in just a few minutes, because the key information is already laid out clearly.

• During the visit, they use Plato's customer view to guide the conversation. They log orders on the spot and hand them straight to inside sales as a task.

• Right after the visit, they share their notes as a voice memo. The AI structures the information and makes it easy for the team to follow. Each note also feeds the data pool, improving future AI analysis.

Revenue growth of up to 33% since introducing Plato

Gerhard Mann started using Plato in production in spring 2026. Just three months later, Benedikt Forsthofer confirms:

"Plato is the best thing that's happened to me this year!"

That's a strong claim, and the numbers back it up:

• Since adopting Plato, Gerhard Mann's revenue has grown by up to 33%.

• Adoption across the sales team is high: 100% of field reps use Plato every week, which is why Gerhard Mann plans to keep rolling out the sales cockpit further.

• Sales reps get back around 6 hours of working time every week.

At the same time, Benedikt Forsthofer sees his company as well-positioned on AI. As a Plato partner, he benefits from innovative approaches he helps shape together with Plato — and gets access to them ahead of others.