A grocery store chain in Saratov region migrated its outlets to the ERP-system based on Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012. It was implemented with the support of Odyssey Consulting Group company. The project affected 226 stores and all the key divisions of the retail chain. Transition to a single corporate ERP-system allowed the company to standardize the data accounting, quickly get information on each store and effectively carry out planning and analysis of the entire company. The result of this implementation was the unification of previously disparate processes of finance, purchasing and sales, assortment planning, logistics management, product accounting, etc.
Grozd chain has about 230 stores located in 25 cities of Saratov region. More than 200 thousand people visit the company's sales outlets every day. The total number of employees engaged in customer service is more than 5 thousand. In addition to tens of thousands of goods produced by its suppliers, the company sells around 200 products under its own brand "Taste of Life".
Before the project with Odyssey Consulting Group the retail chain used several IT solutions: for accounting, security systems, POS-systems, as well as solutions for electronic document interchange and data terminal management. Such a number of disparate systems made it difficult to support them, taking a lot of time and effort from the IT department employees. Grozd chain management was looking for a comprehensive solution with broad possibilities for modification and development of functionality, based on the future needs of the retail chain. It was necessary to unify the working operations of all stores and departments of the retail chain. The new ERP-system had to cover finance, logistics, distribution center management, shipment, in-house production, raw materials and products accounting, assortment management, electronic data exchange with suppliers, retro-bonus accounting and other processes.
While searching for a new system, Grozd's management examined the proposals of the leading vendors and settled on the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform. The key criteria for selecting a project partner were the company's ready-made functionality for the retail solution, the system flexibility and adaptability, as well as the experience of the project team. In order to find a solution provider, the retail chain held a tender with the participation of several IT consulting companies and Odyssey Consulting Group was chosen as a partner.
"We were very lucky with the project team. Odyssey Consulting Group consultants thoroughly examined and described the operations and processes used by the company. These are talented specialists with high level of expertise and deep knowledge of the specifics of our retail business", - commented Irina Alekseeva, financial director of Grozd Trading Network
Increasing the efficiency of updating of commodity balances in the system by processing the data on commodity checks during the day;
Providing effective and reliable integration with other systems used in the company: EDI, EGAIS, etc.;
Optimizing assortment management by implementing the guide of commodity life cycle and storing the history of assortment changes;
Automating accounting of settlements with suppliers and forming payment requests in accordance with the commercial terms of agreements.
The project was implemented by stages. During this time the specialists carried out automation of the processes of timekeeping, trade and logistic processes, adjustment of the financial loop and large-scale replication. Now we are working with data of a completely different quality: the system includes convenient tools for controlling business processes, visual presentation of information, formation and analysis of reports.
"All of this helps our company's management to receive the necessary information in a timely manner and make informed decisions", - commented Andrei Makhnovets, IT Director of the Grozd retail chain. - "ERP allows us to get a comprehensive and accurate summary of store data based on the entries made and present the resulting information in a convenient form".
It became easier for the management of the financial department to coordinate payment requests, monitor the implementation of each of them, analyze financial performance and the schedule of regular payments, and quickly find the necessary documents on contracts with partners. Regarding management accounting the processes of mutual settlements with contractors, retro-bonuses accounting, fixed assets and intangible assets accounting, treasury, formation of financial statements and calculation of financial analysis indicators were automated. The transition from the cash method of revenue and expense recognition to the accrual method was carried out as part of the project.
At the same time, the implemented system allows to quickly obtain analytical reporting both from the point of view of income and expenditure management, and from the point of view of cash flow management. The most important block of assortment management processes was automated within the project. The used solution allows to manage the assortment taking into account the assortment life cycle stages in relation to the outlets grouped according to formats, geography and other analytics with a possibility of detailed elaboration up to a concrete store. Pricing has also changed: now the Grozd trading network carries out flexible price formation by assortment for each store and period.
Plans for further development of the solution include the application of advanced calculation and price management tools by the company. The solution contains and steadily operates a mechanism for consolidated planning and automatic generation of orders for replenishment of outlets based on demand forecasts. Back-office processes of all stores are also transferred to the automated system. Convenient timekeeping tools have been implemented. Commercial and financial reporting is based on OLAP technologies. During the implementation, Odyssey Consulting Group experts also configured EDI solution to enable electronic data exchange between the ERP-system and suppliers, which resulted in Grozd`s reduced labor costs of staff to work with the bills.
The Odyssey Food Retail solution based on Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 platform has a wide range of scalability and further development of its functionality - exactly what the company needs in the highly competitive area of retail. Ability to be flexible, respond quickly to market challenges, quickly and easily adapt its system helps to meet the changing demands of its customers and partners. We have created a foundation which we can confidently rely on in the further development of the network
