CEO Uwe Gebhardt sums up interim results of introduction of Compex Commerce® software
Particularly mid-sized branch enterprises face huge challenges in preparing for the introduction of new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. In order to be able to manage software projects of this dimension successfully, many factors must be coordinated. The Kissel group currently finds itself in the middle of such a project. The previous software of the Landau, Germany-based trading group had reached its limits, and the implementation of new standard software had become unavoidable. Last year, the group, with 21 retail outlets and two “cash-and-carry” markets, began with the introduction of Compex Commerce® software.
In conversation: Uwe Gebhardt, CEO of the Kissel group. The business graduate has been active in various management roles for over ten years. Through many years of leading and guiding several large projects, he has acquired a high IT affinity.
Mr. Gebhardt, where is the project now?
We’ve reached the first milestone on target. Since the beginning of the year, the inventory component has been live and running. At the beginning of the project, we were unfortunately under very high time pressure due to the many accumulated requirements, and thus had to master several challenges together with our software partner. Despite that, we were on-time with the implementation and were even able to conclude the inventory faster than with our previous system. That’s unusual. Normally, one needs more time for the initial implementation of new software; the employees still have to get used to it. That it went even faster shows that we also have obvious savings potential with other business processes. And that we’re moving, together with Compex, in the right direction.
How important for you is the success of the first project phase?
The tone that the first steps set is decisive and radiates onto the entire project. That’s why we’re so happy that everything went smoothly. It’s important for us that the employees see and concretely experience: this leads to something that moves us further and is really useful to us.
What was the feedback from your project team regarding working together with Compex?
From all those involved in the project, I hear again and again that it’s proceeding very well. Fundamental for me are the organization — that timetables and agreements are respected — as well as the technical competence. The Compex team has lots of know-how, proceeds in a methodical and clean way and advises us well. A software provider must document and understand customer processes and implement these in its own software. That functioned very well with us.
What kind of feedback has there been from employees who have worked with the new system?
Completely positive. We went into the markets with very little training time for the employees. That it functioned without a problem despite that is due above all to the intuitive usability of the software. A big time-waster during previous inventories were corrections of articles rejected by the offline MDA devices. That effort disappeared entirely this time, because Compex works with online MDA. We could directly query missing article master data during the inventory, or correct it once for all users. In this way, there wasn’t a single article rejected out of 65,000.
What were your most important criteria in the selection of a software provider?
Most important for us was the technical competence, i.e., that Compex could fulfill the requirements and convincingly depict not only our retail but also our wholesale business processes. Secondly, the future-capable architecture and technological platform of the software were decisive criteria. And thirdly, at our software provider the decision paths are short. The customer-supplier relationship is optimal for us, so that for important concerns I always have quick access to a decision-maker — which certainly wouldn’t be possible at one of the big software providers. And not least of all, simply the partner-like cooperation defines the good customer contact.
What do you advise other companies to do before the introduction of new ERP software?
I can recommend to every company, and particularly mid-sized ones, to involve yourself intensively with your own requirements. Whoever does that seriously, and above all timely, minimizes the risk of endangering budgets or timetables during a project. It is only an advantage for all participants to know exactly what one really needs. Just like in school: whoever wants to avoid great stress has to have done their homework thoroughly first.