The company ZC s.r.o. has been selling gardening supplies since 1994, when it started its operations with the opening of the Garden Centre in Jindřichův Hradec. Soon the company also started to engage in wholesale distribution activities, which now accounts for the majority of turnover, supplying other garden centres, garden supply stores, flower shops and other retail outlets throughout the Czech Republic. Today, ZC s.r.o. also operates a second garden centre in Valašské Meziříčí and employs 120 people with a total annual turnover of approximately CZK 360 million.
Due to its size, the company must manage its business using a standard information system. Previously, the company had been using the i/2 information system for about 10 years, which proved to be generations out of date relatively quickly after its implementation. Its other disadvantage was the small customer base in the Czech Republic, which in practice meant expensive customization in case of each system modification, which had to be paid for by the system user. For these reasons, the company eventually decided to replace the system and subsequently issued a tender for a new ERP application.
The integrated application was to cover completely all the agenda used by the company in its wholesale and retail activities.This included accounting, inventory management, invoicing, customer relationship management (CRM), management output and reporting (BI), POS system, and tools for sales representatives to work in the field.
Given the importance of the project and in order to balance the relationship with the information system supplier during the tender and implementation, the company hired the consulting company AppliCon IT.This was to help with the selection of the right supplier and subsequently with the conclusion of the contract in the right form so that the company avoided negative experiences with the operation of the previous solution. The company chose from a total of seven information systems and finally chose to deploy the Helios Green application from Asseco.
For ERP system deployment projects, AppliCon IT uses its own MAPIC methodology, which generally deals with three areas: ERP system implementation, process analysis and process optimization of selected processes. The stages of cooperation with the customer on the project include project preparation (including determination of the team, goals, schedule, process map, etc.), system selection (RFI, RFQ), contracting model (including implementation, license, maintenance and purchase agreement) and actual implementation.
The actual implementation project contains the following four blueprints:
The system was successfully deployed and commissioned and has been in operation since 2014. One of the main benefits of AppliCon IT was its role in the tender process, where an employee of the consulting firm supervised the analysis of the project and the consistent description of all aspects so that they could not be later implemented (and charged) in the form of multiple works. Such situations were effectively prevented by the external consultant, both by the wording of the contract and by the uncompromising emphasis on a good pre-implementation analysis. The result was both the selection of a suitable information system, which is an order of magnitude more flexible and adaptable to the needs and growth of the company compared to the original solution, and well-treated conditions for its deployment, operation and further development.
The system is currently being continuously developed and new requirements for innovations and new functionalities are constantly arising during the work in the information system. The company wants, for example, to deploy a specialised superstructure for the controlled warehouse in the near future, taking advantage of the experience gained during the implementation of the ERP system, and to set up the same model of cooperation set by AppliCon IT with the supplier of other software tools.
“Our expectations of the AppliCon IT consultant were based on our desire for him to help us balance the customer’s position in the project against a much more experienced vendor. Mr. Zdenek Špelina fully met these expectations and we felt his oversight of the implementation fully supported our interests. In particular, he contributed to the clear formulation of the contract and prevented attempts to simplify certain processes in order to generate more costs later. In the end, Mr. Špelina saved us a lot of money, time and unexpected situations that we would not have been able to react to. “
Filip Klíma, jednatel společnosti ZC s.r.o.
