Olivier Luxon

The best technology transformations aren’t really about technology at all. They’re built on people, cultural shifts, the freedom to ask difficult questions and – perhaps most importantly – collaboration. Or, as Kramp’s Olivier Luxon and his colleague Jens Waaijers call it, working as ‘two in a box’. 

This unique and – certainly in the context of complex enterprise environments – simple approach to delivering tangible change has yielded remarkable results at Kramp. Under the stewardship of Olivier and Jens, the Dutch supplier of parts and accessories for the European agricultural, forestry and landscape industries, is transforming how technology and business align to deliver success. 

Among the objectives are transforming a legacy business with a 70-year heritage, replacing and introducing new technologies to deliver better outcomes for Kramp and its customers, and driving a transformation that brings large-scale change now while also building strong foundations for the future. 

Kramp, which was established in 1951, operates across 24 countries, serving dealers and farmers through a complex ecosystem of suppliers and partners. Its core proposition, fast and reliable delivery to customers, requires effective technology infrastructure to manage its ecommerce website, inventory, logistics and customer relationships across multiple markets.

Olivier joined Kramp nearly three years ago, having previously been CIO at Carrefour Belgium. As VP of Technology, he is responsible for all tech supporting the company’s operations and customers in 24 countries. This covers the systems that power Kramp’s ecommerce offering from its website and its supply chain, but also the digital tools used by employees and customers. 

“My focus is also on transformation,” he says. “That involves transforming the entire tech landscape to make it ready for the future, including areas like possible new channels we want to introduce, developing new business models and empowering expansion and growth – basically for everything that we need in the years ahead as we evolve.

“I’m passionate about the change process,” Olivier adds. “Particularly around new innovations in ecommerce, fulfillment, operations, data and security, as well as AI. Technology, for me, is an end-to-end process that supports the business. A big part of our transformation is focused on evolving our legacy technology and upgrading the landscape so that we can build strong foundations for meeting our strategic objectives in the years to come. Of course, collaboration is central to every step of that.”

The evolution of technology at Kramp

Kramp has a long history of success. Its technology transformation started in the early 2000s, when the company became one of the first in its sector to embrace ecommerce. 

“We’re more than 70 years old as a business, which can present some legacy challenges,” says Olivier. “Around the year 2000 we were one of the first in the industry to move to ecommerce, shifting from a completely offline model to being online only. That involved developing our own ecommerce platform, launching a mobile application and also evolving back-to-back connections with our major partners.”

As a result of this significant shift, Kramp underwent a major transformation after 2000, evolving to maximise opportunities from its new online approach and growing rapidly through acquisitions and expansion into new countries. 

A merger with a major competitor in 2013 brought new technology opportunities, with Kramp having to integrate different platforms, systems and processes into its expanding network.

As the company continued to grow, it adopted a range of digital solutions, including a  customer relationship management (CRM) system, and as a result needed to update and evolve its ecommerce capabilities. 

To read the full article in the magazine, click HERE.