Integrated ERP/EDI/ECM Solution Creates Foundation for Digital Transformation That Powers Huge Growth
At 117 years old, but still rapidly growing, Guillevin International recognized it was at a point where existing systems were hindering the company’s progress. Management decided to launch a digital transformation initiative and brought in Laurent Renaud, Vice President, Information Technology, at Guillevin to lead the charge. He shared, “Management recognized that we needed to invest in building a robust technology foundation to support growth and create value for the business.”
Guillevin is one of Canada’s largest distributors of electrical material, safety products and equipment, industrial supplies, and in addition, operates more than 125 locations across the country. With a focus on the end-user experience, Laurent selected Epicor Prophet 21. He revealed, “Compared to a more generic solution, which required substantial modifications to make it fit our business, Epicor Prophet 21 is an out-of-the-box, built-for-distribution answer. We felt that Epicor had a much better understanding of our business and our needs.”
Compared to a more generic solution, which required substantial modifications to make it fit our business, Epicor Prophet 21 is an out-of-the-box, built-for-distribution answer. We felt that Epicor had a much better understanding of our business and our needs.
That decision made the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) choice clearer as Laurent was not interested in building the needed expertise internally. The fact that Epicor helped to offer an EDI module integrated with ERP felt like a natural fit. “With Epicor, you get one partner who understands both. When you talk to the EDI team, they know Epicor Prophet 21. That cross-over knowledge made the integration easier and was a key determining factor,” he remarked.
Early in the project, EDI was flagged as a potential risk. With the number of partners and transactions at stake, that was unacceptable, so Laurent requested to fast-track the EDI implementation. “Epicor assured us they could meet our timeline and eliminate that risk,” Laurent explained. “In fact, Epicor delivered the EDI integration six to eight weeks early!”
Today Epicor EDI is used primarily for invoices from key vendors. The next step is to move all vendors to Epicor EDI, and, in conjunction with Epicor Enterprise Content Management (ECM), helped to enable Guillevin to fully automate the payables process. “Because the EDI integration went so smoothly and efficiently, we are not worried about migrating our vendors, which is a relief for such a big project.”
Epicor EDI and Epicor ECM integrated with Epicor Prophet 21 is the cornerstone of Guillevin’s digital transformation: “We will be moving from a decentralized and manual workflow to a centralized, automated one,” Laurent clarified. Instead of each location managing invoices, the corporate office will be able to consolidate the process. And Epicor has already helped to provide rich capabilities in terms of visibility and access to the right information. “We were coming from a system that didn't have a lot of checks and balances, so it was easy to bypass information. But trying to manage a system with incomplete information comes back to bite you,” Laurent acknowledged.
We can open new sites and acquire new businesses, without having to add new hires to handle a massive load of invoices. Epicor has given us the ability to grow at the operations level without having to generate additional costs in the back office.
The integrated Epicor solution helped to enable Guillevin to automate the entire sales workflow and make all data accessible to both end-users and management. “Furthermore, the centralization of EDI combined with ECM and ERP will deliver a huge improvement and cost savings in terms of being able to redeploy resources,” Laurent projected.
He continued, “We can open new sites and acquire new businesses without having to add new hires to handle a massive load of invoices. Epicor has given us the ability to grow at the operations level without having to generate additional costs in the back office.”
This is critical because Guillevin was experiencing rapid growth, much of it through acquisitions.
That rapid pace of growth demands systems that can accommodate expansion seamlessly. Guillevin’s experience with Epicor had given the company confidence in doing so efficiently, even with unique requirements. As an example, for the ERP rollout Laurent had requested a phased implementation approach, which required Guillevin to run both the legacy EDI and the Epicor EDI concurrently for several months. Laurent observed, “The Epicor team did a great job in building a fairly complex, totally customized dispatch table to feed data to both. That was a key element to enabling us a progressive and successful rollout.”
Laurent elaborated, “Migrating to Epicor was a good project—it delivered on time, and we didn’t have to massively rescope anything to do so. That means we can show risk-averse business leaders a track record of smooth implementations.”
A seasoned IT executive, Laurent has heard vendors who claim they can do everything and horror stories of vendors who over promise and under deliver.
Laurent stated, “It's refreshing to have a partner who delivered on its promises. And even if we aren’t yet using all the advanced functionalities, we know now that whatever we want to do going forward, Epicor will support it.”
With integrated Epicor Prophet 21, Epicor EDI and Epicor ECM, Guillevin now has the technological foundation to build a modern business and to support a rapid expansion rate. He added, “Before Epicor our answer was too often ‘No, our systems can’t do it.’ Now, our answer is, ‘Yes, we can.’ It’s a major shift.”
In addition to on-boarding new acquisitions, Laurent’s next big initiative is deploying Epicor Warehouse Management. He predicted, “If we project out a year and a half, once everything is fully on-board and integrated, the efficiency gains we make will be huge.” That is an important milestone to look forward to.