From WhatsApp orders to fully digital. In 4 months.
How a Berlin-based logistics company digitalized their entire order-to-delivery operation and shipped 2 months ahead of schedule. Because they mapped their processes first.
Background
A growing logistics operator hitting the manual ceiling
Kiezbote runs emission-free B2B delivery across Berlin: express courier, same-day delivery, and on-demand fleet services for business clients. Restaurants, retailers, e-commerce brands, textile services. They all need things moved fast, reliably, and sustainably.
For a long time, that worked the way it works at most growing logistics operators: a client sends a WhatsApp message. Someone confirms. A dispatcher assigns a rider. Pickup happens. Delivery happens. Maybe there's a spreadsheet tracking it. Maybe not.
It worked. Until it didn't. Growing client base, seasonal peaks, more riders, more complexity. The WhatsApp-and-spreadsheet model was hitting a wall. Orders got lost between handoffs. Routing was manual. Client communication was reactive. There was no single system connecting order intake to delivery confirmation.
Kiezbote needed to go fully digital: end-to-end, from customer booking to delivery confirmation. One integrated operation. That's a digital transformation. And digital transformations without process clarity are where companies burn time, money, and team morale.
The Problem
You can't digitalize without process clarity
Kiezbote's challenge wasn't just "get new software." It was: figure out exactly how every operational workflow actually runs, then redesign it for a digital system.
Processes existed in people, not in systems
How does a booking actually flow from intake to dispatch? What happens when a delivery gets rerouted mid-route? What's the escalation path when a pickup fails? Everyone knew their piece. Nobody had the full picture documented. That's fine when you're 10 people. It's a liability when you're 40 and digitizing.
Multiple service types, zero shared documentation
Express courier, same-day time-window delivery, and on-demand fleet capacity each run differently. Different intake flows, different routing logic, different client communication triggers. Digitizing meant mapping all of them. Without a structured approach, this would've been months of workshops and Post-it notes leading nowhere.
The transformation itself needed a backbone
Building a digital platform is one thing. Knowing what it needs to do, in precise operational detail, is another. Every integration point, every handoff, every exception path needed to be explicit before a single line of code was written. Otherwise you're building on assumptions.
The Solution
Map it first, build it right
Before Kiezbote digitalized anything, they mapped everything, using Crismo as the process backbone for their entire transformation.
Full operational mapping across all service lines
Every workflow, from order intake to final delivery confirmation, was modelled in BPMN. Not as a documentation exercise, but as the blueprint their development team built against. Time-window routing logic. Rerouting and escalation paths. Capacity allocation and dispatch rules. All explicit, all in one place.
The dev team had a shared operational truth layer from day one. Instead of waiting for months of requirements gathering, they could start building immediately, taking in change requests on the fly as processes were refined. A living spec that evolved with each sprint, enabling genuinely agile delivery.
Cross-functional alignment without endless meetings
Operations, dispatch, tech, and client-facing teams all worked from the same process models. When a developer had a question about the returns flow, they didn't schedule a meeting, they checked the process. When ops wanted to change the pickup confirmation sequence, they updated the model and everyone saw it.
What was planned as a 6-month transformation shipped in 4. Not because they cut corners, but because they eliminated the ambiguity that usually slows everything down.
End-to-end integration became executable
The documented processes became the integration specification. Order intake via portal or API, automated dispatch, route optimization, real-time tracking, delivery confirmation. Every step was already mapped. The tech team wasn't guessing what to connect. They were executing against a clear operational blueprint.
Kiezbote went from WhatsApp-based order management to a fully integrated digital platform. Clients now book, track, and confirm deliveries end-to-end without a single manual handoff.
Results
The numbers after 6 months
Order processing: manual/WhatsApp → fully automated end-to-end
“We knew we needed to digitalize. What we didn't realize was that the process mapping would become the most valuable part of the whole transformation. Without it, we'd still be in workshops trying to agree on how things actually work.”
Implementation
How it unfolded
Operational mapping
Mapped every workflow across all service types in BPMN. Identified integration points, exception paths, and handoff logic. Dev team started building against initial process specs in parallel.
Build & iterate
Development sprints running against the living process models. Change requests from ops fed directly into updated BPMN specs. No requirements ambiguity, no rework loops.
Integration & testing
End-to-end integration: booking portal, API, dispatch automation, route optimization, live tracking. Process models served as the test specification.
Live operation
Fully digital order-to-delivery platform live. Clients booking, tracking, and confirming deliveries end-to-end. Two months ahead of original schedule.
Planning a digital transformation?
The companies that map their processes first finish faster, build better, and don't lose operational knowledge along the way.