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The new normal
The new normal
Due to the pandemic, all NKG colleagues worldwide had to rethink their ways of work and experiment with digital tools like those of Office 365. In the last issue of NKG Connected, we gave you an overview of how the COVID-19 pandemic affected NKG’s business in each country. Jörn Severloh, Group Co-COO, then stated, that the new working conditions resulting from the pandemic had contributed to a major step forward in digitalization. “We are on our way towards a more uniform and modern IT landscape coming from our traditional highly diverse structure. To further improve and harmonize our data structure, a lot of changes and a sizeable investment into our IT infrastructure will take place over the next years”, says Jörn Severloh from today’s point of view. “In my opinion, we have already become much more flexible in our processes”, adds Cyrille Négaret, Head of NKG’s Group IT. He and his team were mainly in charge of organizing the new digital paths. You can read here how the IT department handled the new working conditions and what developments were and are still being made in terms of digitalization.
But besides centralized projects coordinated at NG in Hamburg, many group companies also found creative ways to deal with the pandemic and related changes and challenges. We have followed up on three “projects” as examples to show the potential and strong commitment of NKG companies to emerge from the pandemic even stronger than before and develop concepts for future collaboration beyond Covid-19 :
“We are on our way towards a more uniform and modern IT landscape coming from our traditional highly diverse structure. To further improve and harmonize our data structure, a lot of changes and a sizeable investment into our IT infrastructure will take place over the next years.”
During the first waves of the pandemic, NKG Kala Hamburg was forced to implement stringent shifts of fixed teams to assure social distancing and minimize the risk of infections. Especially for the logistics team this was very challenging. But, despite all doubts, it worked out well and even accelerated the process towards a “paperless office” not just for the logistics department. “The strong growth in networking between the logistics systems and the commercial systems through digital communication channels helped us a lot”, says Christian Rannow, member of Team Jette at NKG Kala, that is responsible for the simplification and digitalization of processes.
For example, they integrated barcode scanners and a fully digital devanning report to enable paperless communication between the sample ramp, including sampling, and logistics. Furthermore, the successful introduction of the e-file in their customs software enabled 100 % digital filing of customs documents. The final filing system is now also conveniently available to all colleagues, regardless of location. In addition, several interfaces to customers were successfully launched. “We tried to integrate these under the motto ‘give-and-take’, so that processes in the future can also be optimized with a digitized document flow”, says Christian Rannow. With the Kala’s main forwarder, order placement is handled exclusively digitally via the interface. Further interfaces with other forwarders are currently in production and are expected to go live soon.
Since 2014, HRNS do Brasil and NKG Stockler organize the “Força Café Coffee Championship” once a year, a Specialty Coffee Championship to stimulate coffee quality improvement in Brazil and to appreciate family farmers’ work. Traditionally, the judging of the competition takes place over several days on Fazenda da Lagoa, NKG’s farm in Brazil. On the evening of the final judging day, the farm hosts an outdoor celebration, where the finalists and winners are announced – an important event for Brazilian small-scale farmers to socialize and get rewarded for their efforts. But how to organize such an event during a worldwide pandemic?
As cancelling the Championship was not an option, the organizers had to re-think the format and made it possible to host the 7th “Força Café Coffee Championship” in fall 2020 as a virtual event with the slogan “Let’s make it happen again”. Instead of cupping together at Fazenda da Lagoa, the judges could benefit from the new Quality Lab Software, “QCS” a tool developed by NKG to input comments and scores. During a live online award ceremony, the winners were announced, followed by an online auction for the winning lots. “We missed the most appreciated thing that we have in the coffee business, that is the personal contact, but we made it happen again”, says Alexandre Ferraz of NKG Stockler, one of the organizers of the event. Hopefully, this year a competition “in person” will be possible again, but still the digital version would be a good option.
The 7th “Força Café Coffee Championship” was hosted by HRNS do Brasil and NKG Stockler virtually.
Gerra Harrigan, Araceli Mendoza and Daniela Altamirano from InterAmerican Coffee US cupped and evaluated the Força Café coffees in their local offices in the States.
Not just as part of the “Força Café Coffee Championship”, cupping during the pandemic has become very challenging. Therefore, NKG Quality Service created the remote cupping program “Stay Fit for Cupping”, which we already introduced in the last issue of NKG Connected. Besides offering the possibility to cup coffees on a regular basis and having the possibility to calibrate with other cuppers, the program also provides knowledge about different factors that affect the quality and flavor formation. The team of NKG Quality Service produces videos to guide participants through their cuppings and share their knowledge with them.
After the first successful year with the “Stay Fit for Cupping Arabica program” and more than 50 users, NKG Quality Service launched the “Stay Fit for Cupping Robusta program” in October 2020. “We are convinced that this product is an excellent training tool, not only for the current situation, but also for the future”, says Gloria Pedroza, Head of NKG Quality Service.
The “Stay Fit for Cupping Robusta program” was launched in October 2020.
Despite Covid-19 restrictions, roaster clients and employees of NKG found a way to discuss important market developments at “NKG Roaster Day 2021”. For the first time, the event took place in a virtual environment – a challenging and inspiring experience at the same time.
Did you notice that since the outbreak of the pandemic, NKG’s IT team has probably been among the people you talked to most frequently? The IT department has been instrumental in keeping the operation running over the last few months. Read more about the team and their key areas of work.
In normal times, the Board of Management holds regular meetings at the office in Hamburg with selected colleagues from NKG to discuss current and upcoming business issues. Although we are currently still far away from these normal times, the Work Together took place again this year.
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