Thanks to portatour®, we can quickly turn our field sales requirements into reality and get optimized results at the touch of a button.
Jonas Gronau,
Sr. Sales Operations Manager
HOLY is the powder-based alternative to traditional soft drinks. The brand has already gained over two million loyal customers online. Since entering the brick-and-mortar retail market, HOLY is now available in most German grocery stores.
HOLY Energy and HOLY Hydration are currently available on store shelves. Two additional product lines, HOLY Iced Tea and HOLY Milkshake, will follow next year. Behind this expansion is a dynamic team of over 100 employees, including 25 in the core retail team and 15 in the field sales force.
Jonas Gronau, Senior Sales Operations Manager at HOLY, is responsible for operational processes ranging from order management to B2B support. He also oversees fleet management, including the branded HOLY vehicles that regularly attract attention from retail partners.
With HOLY, we want to revolutionize the world of soft drinks and combine full flavor with a clear conscience, according to the motto: Zero sugar, zero bullsh*t. Today, we are already represented in more than half of all German food retailers, but we still have a lot to do.
Jonas Gronau, Sr. Sales Operations Manager
It became clear right from the start: manual route planning cannot be scaled. As soon as several hundred stores with different priorities, intervals, and deadlines need to be managed, complexity and susceptibility to errors increase rapidly.
From the outset, HOLY opted for a setup that grows with the company, responds flexibly to new dealer focuses, and provides the field sales force with a clearly structured week. So the question was not whether a tool was needed, but which one.
With portatour®, HOLY found a solution that reliably maps intervals, market groups, and short-term promotions—with minimal effort for the sales force. The sales department started using portatour® right away, avoiding detours via Excel spreadsheets or manual planning logic from the outset.
We realized very, very early on that manually planning routes is not actually scalable.
Jonas Gronau, Sr. Sales Operations Manager
According to Jonas Gronau, the introduction of portatour® went smoothly and quickly. Initially, some markets were created manually before the master data record could be completed using the dealer database. The training sessions with the portatour® team focused less on how to use the tool and more on the planning logic: sensible call intervals, realistic daily targets, dealer groups, and start parameters for weekly planning.
HOLY deliberately took time to precisely adjust the parameters for territory optimization. The account management team at portatour® provided close support, helped with data cleansing, and contributed best practices. The result: rapid deployment and high acceptance among the field sales force—especially among career changers who appreciate the intuitive operation.
It's a very pleasant collaboration. We have been actively supported by our account management team since day one. It's going really well.
Jonas Gronau, Sr. Sales Operations Manager
While automatic route planning has long been part of everyday life, HOLY is introducing territory optimization step by step. During the development phase, some oversized territories with 500 to 700 stores were created—an operational challenge that was impossible to overcome. This resulted in long journeys, few visits per day, and intervals that were difficult to maintain.
With portatour® Territory Optimization, HOLY can now simulate various scenarios and immediately see how changes affect workload, travel times, and call intervals - without manual comparisons or zip code exports.
A particular advantage of the territory planning software is its home location suitability: it shows where new employees should ideally live in order to cover an area efficiently. HOLY already uses this function to target job advertisements more effectively.
It is virtually impossible to optimize territories independently. There are so many variables that need to be taken into account. portatour® Territory Optimization is the ideal solution for this.
Jonas Gronau, Sr. Sales Operations Manager
portatour® creates the “perfect week” at the touch of a button based on the intervals, dealer groups, and priorities defined by the office staff. For the field sales force, this means: open your iPad, tap on planning, and hit the road. If an appointment is canceled, simply recalculate and the next suitable market will automatically be added to the day.
HOLY also appreciates the flexibility of the system: custom fields in reporting, image uploads, filter functions, and modules that can evolve with the organization. This creates a stable schedule that ensures speed, consistency, and transparency in a dynamic retail setup.
As an administrator, portatour® is very intuitive to use. We can quickly turn our field sales force requirements into reality and get optimized results at the touch of a button. This makes portatour® the best solution for route planning and territory optimization for us.
Jonas Gronau, Sr. Sales Operations Manager
Naturally, there are hardly any “before/after” KPIs – HOLY started trading directly with portatour®. Nevertheless, the effects are clearly noticeable: The planning effort is significantly lower compared to other solutions. Call intervals and dealer priorities are consistently adhered to, and canceled appointments no longer cause gaps.
Territory optimization results in realistic daily targets and balanced workloads. New colleagues, regions, or dealer clusters can be onboarded quickly without reinventing the logic. The office staff manages and optimizes, while the field staff can concentrate fully on the markets.
I have never heard of any colleague having to spend a long time planning their tours. The high level of satisfaction that prevails is, I believe, the greatest praise.
Jonas Gronau, Sr. Sales Operations Manager
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