Will you continue to invest in the old way of working? Or do you opt for an ERP package with ample possibilities for the future? Maasland faced that choice in early 2021. "Implementing SAP Business One was ultimately a logical step.

Maasland is a wholesale distributor of access control products. Imports come from all over the world. Customers are mainly electrical wholesalers, electrical installers and hardware stores. Since its founding in 1986, the company has grown steadily.

Looking back, the old ERP package had not been adequate for quite some time. Willeke Bisschop, operational director of Maasland: 'Because functionalities were missing, custom components had to be built all the time and external software programs were added. But with every update, that caused problems again. We were regularly spending a whole day getting everything up and running.'

Collaborating with suppliers

So time for a new package, but which one? First we tried to set up our own ERP system with a software partner. That came to nothing. Then we started looking around for a system that could meet our needs. The choice fell on SAP Business One, mainly because some (international) suppliers and customers also use it.

Roelof Hoogers, commercial director: 'Using the same ERP system as other players in the chain offers great advantages. In the future we can link SAP Business One to those of the other chain partners, allowing us to automatically enter orders and customers to see delivery times and statuses in real time.'

What also counted for Maasland was that SAP Business One was relatively easy to link to the already existing web shop and the PIM system used by Maasland.

Bisschop: "We were ultimately able to implement SAP Business One within a record time of 9 months. Quite a relief after years of trying to get our own system built.

Getting used

Because of the short implementation period, the transition to SAP Business One was quite abrupt. Bisschop: "We had just come out of the busiest period of the year and I must honestly say that the transition to the new package took a lot of getting used to. But: the basis stood like a house.

Ultimately, we agreed with Logres that we would take one day per month of consultancy to be able to quickly pick up and implement all wishes and questions. This allows us to fine-tune the package more and more to our liking.'

Bisschop: 'Finetuning goes both ways: in some respects SAP Business One is increasingly adapted to our wishes, but sometimes it was also necessary to change our own way of working. Fortunately, Logres expertly advises us on this.'

New insights

Bisschop: "Using new functionalities is sometimes just a matter of setting them up. For example, we can now approve orders and purchase invoices very easily. We now want to set up something similar for our Belgian administration. We also intend to start working with handheld scanners in the warehouse soon.'

What is really a big improvement is the expanded reporting capabilities in SAP Business One. During the corona period, the demand for information on products and delivery times increased tremendously. Fortunately, you can extract a lot of information from the system. That provides new, better insights that we can move forward with as a company. With SAP Business One, we are ready for the future!