Going live within a year with a new ERP package, a new WMS package and a POS POS POS system. That was the challenge facing Oriental Holding Europe, the cooperative with supermarket chain Amazing Oriental and importer/exporter of Asian A-brands, in 2020. It was up to Logres to help.

Oriental Holding began in 1985 with a store in Chintatown in Amsterdam. In 37 years, the company grew to a chain of 24 stores with restaurants and food corners, two distribution centers and a food production facility. Digitization, however, was slower. Consequently, there was some catching up to do.

Eddy Sjauw, Operations Excellence & Contineous Improvements at Oriental Holding Europe: 'As a store employee, if you needed something and you happened to drive by the warehouse, you just went to the warehouse rack, took a few boxes of this and that and left a handwritten bill. That's how it was in those days!'

Catch up

The reason for the catch-up was a situation around the 2019 Christmas season when the supply chain slowly but surely became bogged down, with dire consequences.

Patricia Sjauw, Eddy's wife and a renowned expert in supply chain management was brought in as COO to bring order and oversee the implementation of a new digital WMS system. The requirement was to do so as soon as possible: preferably before next Christmas.

Patricia: "I quickly realized that a WMS system an sich was not the solution. A more drastic change was needed: the switch to a real and complete ERP system. Later, POS (point-of-sale POS system) was added.'

Click

Logres, as supplier of SAP Business One, was the most important of the parties involved, coordinating the infrastructure between all the systems and building the necessary integrations.

Patricia: "The choice of Logres was a very conscious one. We have a complex company and we had high demands. As an ERP partner, you have to be up for that. Logres gave us the feeling from day 1 that they were up for it and were the right partner to do this challenging job with! The click was very good right away.

As if the implementation was not complex enough, one week after the kick-off, the corona crisis broke out. So all consultations took place online and physical meetings were not possible. Meanwhile, Amazing Oriental remained open - because: vital sector - and grew like hell. A huge logistical challenge on top of that that the company miraculously survived.

Top performance

The total implementation time ended up being 11 months, which could have been even faster had the go live not been delayed from December to February 1 due to the busy Christmas period.

An absolute top performance, then, for both Oriental Holding Europe and Amazing Oriental and all the IT partners involved.

Eddy: "Of course we encountered some challenges during the implementation. But Logres was always very open-minded about it. Our wishes were always listened to calmly. Logres is not the party that digs its heels in, but is always looking for a solution that satisfies all parties.

New processes

Behind the scenes, not only was digital automation being worked on, but also the ongoing business processes were critically examined. 'Among other things, the entire Logistics department has been turned over,' says Patricia.

'We now work with the handheld postal scanner. Everything that comes in is registered digitally and everything that goes out is also registered digitally. So we always know exactly what we have on hand and can plan our inventories more precisely. Without the correct MasterData, which we were able to create with SAP Business One, this would not have been possible.

Doing more with fewer people

Since the software systems went live, Amazing Oriental has only continued to grow. Four new stores have already opened. Eddy: "That growth would not have been possible for Oriental Holding Europe without SAP Business One. We now do more with fewer people, much more efficiently and accurately than before.

As a result, the current labor shortage is much less of a problem for us than it would have been without the digital systems. We have sold more and made more margin. In short: we are very happy with the developments. Thanks to Logres who guided us very professionally!