dm digitalization drive
Better service, greater sustainability, improved predictability
Making sure customers feel their voice is being heard is an important principle at dm. A key enabler in this respect is the technological infrastructure, which has now been optimized in partnership with CHG-MERIDIAN. Smartphones are being rolled out to dm employees across Germany, together with 2,200 laptops throughout the store network. These are essential tools for making Germany’s leading drugstore chain even more customer-focused. The project also frees up resources and – thanks to the remarketing of returned devices – enhances the company’s sustainability credentials.
With 2,000 stores, 41,000 employees, and 1.7 million customers a day, dm is Germany’s largest drugstore chain by revenue. Despite these impressive figures, the shareholders emphasize that growth at all costs is not the company’s goal. Instead, the strength of this family business is derived from attractive brands and the mindset of its employees. Ideal conditions for CHG-MERIDIAN, and the launchpad for taking the partnership to the next level
Transparent IT lifecycle management all the way to the end user
When it comes to asset management, dm relies on tesma. This system, developed by CHG-MERIDIAN, ensures that all processes are fully automated. “These range from selection and ordering, through delivery and configuration, to support during use, and finally replacement and return,” says Philipp Zimmer, Key Account Manager at CHG-MERIDIAN.
This is a new and innovative way of rolling out IT devices to staff at the click of a button. tesma brings together all the relevant technical and commercial data in one place and provides the basis for dm’s internal processes, including the ability to allocate the cost of devices internally based on individual end-users.
Sustainability matters
The ability to manage IT lifecycles transparently all the way through to the end user was not the only factor in the decision to work with CHG-MERIDIAN. “We were attracted by the potential savings from a commercial perspective, of course, but we were even more impressed by the process-related benefits, including the returns process. The fact that CHG-MERIDIAN remarkets used assets was particularly important to us, as this meets our own high sustainability standards,” says Christian Stäblein, Head of dmTECH.
“Last year, our technology center in Gross-Gerau refurbished 880,000 IT devices and gave them a second product life after the certified erasure of all data,” adds Tina Geng, Key Account manager at CHG-MERIDIAN.
Automated IT lifecycle as a pay-per-device concept
“Replacement cycles in IT are getting increasingly shorter, and our IT equipment is no exception. Joining forces with CHG-MERIDIAN allows us to provide our employees with the latest technologies and end devices, while meeting our own requirements in terms of hardware, software, and device security. Instead of making huge one-off investments in hardware, software, and services as before, we now benefit from a pay-per-device concept that offers superior predictability,” according to the management at dm. The company benefits from tailored processes and procedures, and from CHG-MERIDIAN’s cost-optimized financing model.
“If I were asked to characterize our partnership with CHG-MERIDIAN, I would say: sustainable, fully automated, and efficient across all of our departments. Among the key factors behind our decision were the ability to optimize and simplify processes through fixed lease terms, to access the latest hardware, software, and security patches, to facilitate transparent internal cost accounting, and to return devices for BSI-compliant data erasure and subsequent remarketing.”
