Digitalisation/BIM
Management approach digitalisation/BIM
Digital tools are playing an increasingly important role in market cultivation. As part of the digitalisation initiative, a dedicated team at Group level and in selected test markets is involved in developing and launching digital tools that are tailored to the different needs of the respective target groups.
Using digital tools, Geberit wants to support professional customers by meeting their needs as far as possible in everyday work. Fourteen applications are now available for assisting professionals in the planning and calculation of sanitary installations or in the commissioning and maintenance of devices. In the reporting year, the focus was on further enhancing the profile of these applications and launching them in new Geberit markets.
End users can find inspiration for their bathroom design in six applications, such as the Washplace Configurator, 3D bathroom planner or virtual showrooms for actuator plates. In 2023, there were concerted efforts towards making these tools available in additional markets. The different tools are now in use in 38 markets.
Direct communication with end users helps firmly establish the Geberit brand among this target group. The “Better bathrooms, better lives” campaign has been running since 2019. It consists of three digital elements: an advertising campaign on media portals, the websites of the local Geberit sales companies with various configurators and planning tools, and a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Interested end users receive additional advice and support from qualified specialists after they register in the CRM system.
The campaign was continued last year, but with significantly reduced expenditure due to the changed market environment. The campaign generated 2.2 million visits on local websites (previous year 3.6 million visits) and 30,000 end consumer registrations in the CRM system (previous year 34,000). The fact that the number of registrations only decreased minimally under these circumstances compared to the previous year underlines the increased efficiency and effectiveness of the refined focus on target groups in the campaign.
Geberit’s online catalogues have been set up on an extremely high-performance platform. Information relating to products and spare parts is available from a single source and can be displayed on various devices. Information searches are intuitive, also enabling easy navigation on mobile devices at the construction site.
Geberit provides the Geberit ProPlanner tool to offer even better support to sanitary engineers and plumbers when planning and configuring bathrooms. It is used to assist the specialists in selecting the right products for a customer-specific project, from the installation and sanitary technology all the way through to the various bathroom products. Another tool designed for everyday use is the Geberit Pro app for sanitary professionals. This offers craftsmen support when it comes to the correct installation of Geberit products.
Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an interdisciplinary planning method that aims to optimise the entire planning and building process, while enabling architects, sanitary engineers, building material manufacturers and building owners to share information efficiently. For a number of years now, Geberit has been providing BIM users with support in the form of product data and calculation modules. A special plug-in is available for the Autodesk Revit planning software, which combines all Geberit BIM tools in one central application and enables direct access to 3D models and planning parameters that are always kept up to date. The plug-in is already being used by more than 12,000 planning and engineering companies for project planning work. To be able to support wholesalers to the greatest possible extent in the structured processing and efficient use of product information, efforts are constantly being made to provide data in line with the ETIM-8 standard (Electro-Technical Information Model). Among other aspects, this includes logistics information with details on the weight, dimensions or packaging type of products. In the meantime, complete logistics data of over 30,000 articles has been recorded.