Gradient is one of the leading distribution companies in Russia in the field of consumer goods of daily demand (FMCG). The assortment of the organization includes more than 20,000 items of cosmetics, perfumery, household chemicals, products for children, goods for home and recreation, personal hygiene and care products. Gradient is the official distributor of more than 100 foreign and domestic manufacturers, including Artdeco, Beiersdorf, Bourjois, Colgate-Palmolive, Estee Lauder, Johnson & Johnson, SC Johnson, Schwarzkopf & Henkel, Unilever. The company's activities cover 77 subjects of the Russian Federation. Since 2006, the organization has been developing its own brand of decorative cosmetics Vivienne Sabo. Gradient's clients are more than 28,000 organizations, including such federal retail chains as Il-De Bote, L'Etoile, Bon Joli, Auchan, Karusel, Real, Azbuka Vkusa, Victoria, Crossroads, Seventh Continent, SPAR, A5, Rigla, Old Doctor, Leroy Merlin, OBI, Detsky Mir, Kangaroo, Olant.
“We strive to use modern IT as the main way to increase labor productivity and company development. Technology plays a not the last role in simplifying and facilitating the work of our employees”, says Alexey Anikin, Head of Logistics division of the Gradient group of companies.
Earlier, Gradient developed its own warehouse management solution built on the basis of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, so the choice of distributor was aimed at using the already accumulated experience of specialists and further work with a similar platform. The company was looking for a system that could be maintained and improved on its own, without the help of partners. At the same time, the warehouse process automation functionality had to correspond to the level of WMS class solutions.
“Thanks to the ability to change faster than competitors, we have become leaders in our market segment. One of the key areas of our activity is the provision of logistics services for companies that at this stage do not plan or cannot implement high-quality and inexpensive logistics. "Gradient" has a rich expertise and wide opportunities in this area, however, the level of development of the current system began to become a limiting factor for us", - said Oleg Barinov, Executive Director of the group of companies " Gradient.
The company has a need to use a more modern platform, to simplify some of the operations and in promising developments that will bring the used warehouse technologies to a new level. An important condition of the project was to obtain a WMS solution, which will become one of components of the logistics direction of the organization's services.
As a result of the search, the Gradient management chose a warehouse management system based on Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, the implementation partner was Odyssey Consulting Group, which has rich experience and knowledge in terms of automation warehouses.
and technological details. Therefore, the implementation was conceived from the very beginning as a full-fledged joint event between Gradient and partners. We actively involved not only business experts and process owners, but also consultants and developers from our team,” says Yuri Kurilin, head of the IT department of the group of Gradient companies.
Odyssey Consulting Group experts conducted an analysis and prepared a terms of reference describing To-Be processes, which were actively agreed upon and discussed at every stage of implementation. Thus, Gradient employees were able to successfully deploy and configure the system on their own with active control from the partner.
An important condition for implementation The project was to train Gradient employees for the future independent development of a new solution. In order to achieve this task, all modifications of the system were prepared by Gradient specialists. Partners from the Odyssey Consulting Group assisted in designing changes to the warehouse module of the implemented solution, were responsible for checking the code, support and quality of the created functionality. Odyssey Consulting Group experts advised the customer on the issues of algorithms and processes of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, details of development based on the universal platform for data collection terminals Odyssey AxAnywhere, which greatly simplified changes in the mobile part of the system.
After the training of Gradient specialists and the successful completion of the development stage, the need to contact the Odyssey Consulting Group was minimized. As a result, as planned, Gradient launched the solution into commercial operation on its own, and the implemented approach to the project will allow maintaining complete independence in the further development of the system.
The Gradient company received a unique modern warehouse management system that combines ease of management and flexibility of settings, which can later be used for customer service operations as part of the provision of 3PL services. At the same time, the solution received wide functionality typical for WMS class products and included the highest quality and modern technological tools.
" We are planning to enter the external market of professional services in the field of logistics. Huge experience in the distribution of FMCG products, quality of service, a developed network of our branches throughout Russia and the use of a modern WMS solution based on the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 platform give everything you need to accomplish this task,” says Alexey Anikin, head of the logistics division of the Gradient group of companies.