Case Study

9 Locations, One Digital Quoting Process – Baustoff Brandes Rolls Out kinisto in Just 4 Weeks

Baustoff Brandes GmbH, with over 125 years of company history, is one of the most established building materials distributors in Northern Germany. Since its founding in 1899 in Peine, the family business has evolved from a manufacturer of cement roof tiles into a modern full-range supplier with 9 locations and around 210 employees.

Full-Range Supplier with Regional Strength

As a member of the Eurobaustoff cooperative, Brandes primarily supplies commercial customers – property developers, construction companies, and trade businesses – with a fleet of 30 trucks. The product range spans from structural and civil engineering materials to roofing and insulation systems, tiles, and flooring. Around 80% of revenue comes from the professional B2B segment.

Challenge

As a growing building materials distributor with nine locations, Brandes faced typical industry challenges:

High volume of incoming requests: The large number of customer inquiries with extensive bills of quantities required significant processing capacity.
Distributed processing across multiple locations: Requests were handled at different locations, making coordination difficult and leading to a lack of transparency in processing status.
Time-intensive manual processes: Reviewing bills of quantities, creating and tracking supplier inquiries, and manual data entry into the ERP system consumed valuable employee time.

Brandes was looking for a solution that would digitize the entire customer request process across all locations and relieve employees of repetitive tasks.

Solution

With kinisto, Brandes chose a holistic digitalization of its quoting operations – from request review to supplier communication:

Automatic request review: Incoming bills of quantities are analyzed immediately. Employees get a complete overview of all items at a glance – without manual processing.
Central request management and prioritization: All requests are consolidated across locations in one platform, prioritized, and tracked transparently. Every location can instantly see which requests are pending and their processing status.
Digital supplier inquiries: Sending supplier inquiries is done directly from kinisto – significantly faster than before. Incoming responses are automatically captured in the platform, greatly improving clarity.
AI-powered BOQ processing: kinisto provides automatic product suggestions and a quick BOQ overview, significantly reducing the processing effort per request.
Cross-location collaboration: Teams at all nine locations work on the same platform – with standardized processes, clear task allocation, and full transparency.

Result

The rollout of kinisto at Baustoff Brandes was remarkably fast – with adoption that exceeded all expectations:

Over 40 employees at 9 locations are actively using kinisto for their daily quote preparation after just four weeks
Instant overview of all requests: The time-consuming manual review of bills of quantities is eliminated – employees can see at a glance what each request contains
Significantly faster supplier inquiries: The entire process from request to response is more structured and transparent – supplier responses are automatically captured
Cross-location transparency: All locations work on a shared platform with unified processing status – duplicate work and coordination issues are a thing of the past
High user acceptance: The intuitive interface and direct added value in daily operations ensure broad acceptance among employees

The introduction of kinisto was remarkably fast – thanks in part to our flexible ERP system, which greatly facilitated the integration. With a strong core team, we were able to drive the change management process internally, so our employees embraced the software from day one. The solution is a perfect fit for our processes and has become indispensable in our daily business.

Carsten Zoll

Managing Director

Successful rollout in just 4 weeks:

> 40

Employees using kinisto daily

Locations on one platform

Conclusion

With kinisto, Baustoff Brandes has put the quoting process across all nine locations on a unified digital foundation. The combination of automatic request review, central request management, and digital supplier inquiries creates a consistently structured workflow – from the incoming request to the finished quote.

Particularly noteworthy is the speed of the rollout: just four weeks after launch, over 40 employees are actively using the platform in their daily operations. The high adoption rate shows that digitalization succeeds when it creates directly tangible value and integrates seamlessly into existing workflows.

For Baustoff Brandes, kinisto is a key building block of digital transformation – and another chapter in the over 125-year history of a company that successfully combines tradition and innovation.