El Asturiano

The business also plans to open 130 new stores every year, and with that in mind, they knew they needed technology that could support their growth while providing full, centralized control of their business processes.

Business case

Before they moved to LS Central, El Asturiano managed their operations using ROMA, an in-house software based on SAC Software, an open-source platform, and Kepler ERP. With data streaming in from many sources, the company found it challenging to consolidate information and generate meaningful reports for management. Each store managed its own sales and customer data, so the company couldn’t know what was happening at each location and how it compared to other locations. At the same time, the volume of data started growing faster than the organization’s ability to keep up, creating more issues to aligndata throughout their business, often providing inaccurate or out of date results.

El Asturiano tried to upgrade their existing systems on several occasions, but soon realized they didn’t have the tools and resources to do it. This is when the company decided to upgrade their business management software to one that would enable them to link their stores to their headquarters and provide a consistent customer experience for all their locations. The company sought a solution that would manage transactions across all their stores, centralize information, offer promotional offers, as well as provide seamless integrations with other platforms.

The solution

The company evaluated three software solutions including Openbravo, but all of them required complex integrations. After extensive research, the company decided to implement LS Central, the unified POS and retail management software by LS Retail. LS Central extends Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP with functionality for retail, allowing businesses to manage POS, store operations, supply chain management, inventory, eCommerce, financials, and customer loyalty in one platform. “Every feature we saw during the product presentation for LS Central and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, was just what we were looking for,” says Nicolas Huerta Perez, ICT Manager at El Asturiano.

Local LS Retail partner C SMART rolled out LS Central in all El Asturiano stores without any hiccups. “To avoid resistance to change, we put an emphasis on training,” says Perez. “We showed the staff how the new system would ensure clarity in transactions and optimize inventory.” The team faced challenges when configuring the second monitor for Dual Display that shows customers information about the transaction. “It was worth the hard work; in the end, this provides transparency and supports a better customer experience,” says Perez, “The implementation project highlighted the importance of understanding the business environment and seeking solutions in line with technological growth, such as running databases on cloud platforms.”

Benefits

Unlike other systems, LS Central doesn’t require any integration, so businesses can access all their key information on the same platform, leading to more informed decision-making and a better understanding of customers. “From a single system, we can see everything related to any operations of the company,” says Perez. “This gives us better visibility across our chain.” Examples of positive changes that LS Central has enabled for El Asturiano include:

They can manage data and reports centrally

Decision-making is now based on timely information, enabling El Asturiano to respond quickly and efficiently to changes in the market, store performance, and the needs of customers. “Before moving to LS Central, we needed to connect store by store and consolidate all the information on a server and then work on that information to order products manually,” says Perez, “Decisions could never be taken immediately.” The company opened new stores at an exponential rate, yet they had no visibility into how the stores performed. “We had no control over sales, purchases, or profitability...it was a difficult period,” says Perez.

Things have changed for the better with LS Central: sales from the stores are automatically synced to head office in real time, and the company gets reports for each area they need. They get an accurate view of inventory, can track product margins, and know if the promotional campaigns they run deliver benefits. “This enables us to negotiate with suppliers and forecast demand more easily,” says Perez, “Our accountants can perform daily consolidation and take better control of cash flow.”

They have achieved greater productivity with automated processes

In the past, most of the company's processes were done manually, which affected how quickly and efficiently they could get things done. But with LS Central, El Asturiano can now automate many of those processes, saving them much more time and effort than before. Here are a few ways the software is helping them improve productivity:

• The payment process to suppliers has been automated, ensuring faster payment processing and saving substantial costs.
• The company has improved the timeliness of merchandise delivery to stores.
• Customers can now manage their own billing accounts and view payment history.
• The Approval Workflow functionality within Business Central has helped automate and systematize the purchasing process.
• The Fixed Assets functionality within Business Central gives an overview of the company’s fixed assets, enabling them to keep track of maintenance costs.

They have easy access to data insights and analytics

Previously, El Asturiano conducted their data analysis manually: employees needed to fill out daily a form to report on sales, purchases, and money deposit cards. Somebody would then collect the forms from each store, consolidate a file, and review it to see if there were any differences. As you can imagine, this meant that the company was spending a lot of valuable time and resources on manual, repeat work, which also left them vulnerable to mistakes and inaccuracies. But since switching to LS Central, the company can now get a real-time overview of their data and access all the information they need from a single database.

With access to reliable information, store managers can finally use data about expenses, purchases, and sales to measure the profitability of all business units. Likewise, the financial department can use indicators such as EBITDA to measure sales performance by region or by store.

They have simplified tasks for their employees

“We continue to be efficient with minimum staff and can allocate the employees we have to the right location,” says Perez. “We have been able to reduce the validation time, simplify processes, and establish controls to improve operations.”

With the support of LS Retail technology and C SMART, El Asturiano managed to maximize efficiency both in terms of product supply and customer service. They now have a scalable platform that can support their expansion and unlock new possibilities for innovation. The company plans to further improve the way they serve and engage with their customers by implementing self-service kiosks and enhancing their loyalty program. “We know that there is a lot to take advantage of in LS Central and we want to use all the functionality of this system we trust,“ says Perez.