| Customer: A leader in the conceptualization, design and assembly of cabinets, providing world-class cabinets and countertops for both kitchens and baths. | Profile: The client is Connecticut’s fastest-growing kitchen and bath cabinet and countertop retailer, offering Cabinets, Countertops, Kitchen Remodeling, Kitchen Renovation, Kitchen Design and Solutions for Bath Cabinets.
Services: Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, Dynamics 365 Field Service, and Magento E-commerce Implementation |
| Industry: Retail | |
| Region: Hartford, Connecticut |
Business Need
The cabinet manufacturer and retailer builds and supplies cabinets and counter-tops to satisfy every preference, lifestyle, and every budget, thereby helping customers transition from old, outdated kitchens to brand-new, easy-to-use, and affordable ones.
The company has 4 different business lines – B2C, wholesale, commercial, and home-owners. The challenge that the company faced, was unifying operations of all the businesses into an integrated system or an integrated network of systems to transact, record, and report on all its transactions with reduced manual effort and intervention. Resource and inventory activities were still centralized, which contributed significantly to the challenge of prioritizing customer orders by customer and customer type.
The company provides many services at various stages of kitchen and bath remodeling to its customers. These include pre-installation, measurement, inspection, debris collection, plumbing, installation, in addition to delivery and installation of cabinets and countertops.
The client uses multiple channels to sell standard as well as customized products based on customer requirement to B2B (Wholesaler and Commercial) and B2C (retailers and multi-home) clients. It runs multiple projects, with its specialists on field, performing a range of different tasks at any given point in time. Most of the company’s products are sold through retail brick-and-mortar stores and a slew of online e-commerce websites. These products, more often than not, need to be configured based on end-customers’ specific design and product requirements.
Orders are placed by customers online or at stores of the company. Once an order is placed, the Inspector, Project Manager, and Installer have to understand the requirements by the customer, the measurement, the requisite design of the kitchen, as well as any customization requirements. Field agents inspect the kitchen area, measure the space and send the report to the managers. They also need to look at several aspects of sewage and plumbing as well as any additional installation that might be required.
Given the customer-centric nature of the industry in which the client operates, the factor that could potentially set it apart from its competitors is efficient, punctual service and provision of quality products to its customers.
Creating work orders to fulfill sales commitments to customers, managing order execution, as well as optimizing inventory using different isolated systems was creating operational issues and was a time-consuming process for the company. Since every business was handled separately in a different system, the client wanted to integrate them all into a single system/ slew of integrated systems, for improved operational performance, increased resource utilization, and faster time-to-market.
Solution and Approach
To meet the requirements of the company, Synoptek solution architects devised a solution involving an integrated set of sophisticated best-of-breed systems. This would help meet the client’s disparate requirements of enhancing quality of service provided to customers, reducing manual labour and intervention in daily operations and make them more accurate and process plus system-driven, thereby increasing the efficiency and accuracy of resources and deliver products and services to customers in a timely manner.
Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Implementation
Synoptek implemented Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations ERP to cater to the requirements of the client’s Finance and Supply Chain Management-related business processes. Right from general ledger entries, to fixed asset management, tax calculation and report generation, company MIS and bank reconciliation – every finance and accounting business process can be tracked within this ERP system.
- Product and Service Management
- Sales Order Recording
- Material Planning for Component Procurement and Stocking
- Vendor Management
- Sales Order Fulfillment
- Product Assembly Using Dynamics 365’s Production Control and Inventory Management Modules.
- Financial Accounting, Management, and Reporting
Dynamics 365 Field Service Implementation
To empower client’s field service representatives, Synoptek deployed the Dynamics 365 for Field Service application, so they can easily record and manage details of services provided by them to customers. This starts right from:
- Scheduling the service provision at customer location.
- Ensuring that the right products/components are delivered in a timely fashion.
- Installing products as per pre-defined schedule.
The personnel can view details of individual schedules, orders to be delivered, locations where products are to be delivered and installed, kitchens to be measured/inspected and also details of inventory and spare parts to be delivered.
Additionally, personnel can “send back” data of missing parts by making use of connected and integrated systems to record, track and report details of products damaged and those which need to be replaced.
With the Dynamics 365 Field Service implementation, field service agents are able to create work orders, manage status, view schedules, maintain resource calendars, view and edit inventory and parts required, and get all the information and details on finance and inventory – at a work order level. The implementation also enables retail customers to check the status of a work order including – tasks completed, tasks pending, and more.
Magento E-commerce Implementation and Integration
To meet the client’s requirement of a robust order placing system at the physical store as well as on the e-commerce website, Synoptek implemented the Magento e-commerce platform. This platform helped the client in setting website-wise pricing, maintaining multiple websites, and showcasing the same products with different brand names to different types of customers.
The Magento website was also integrated with Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations and Dynamics 365 Field Service to efficiently process customer, product and sales order data. Synoptek deployed a team of domain and system experts along with solution architects to design the most optimal integration of the three systems in question, and to implement them, with the aim of providing the client with a network of systems that would deliver real-time data to users, make them more efficient, and less stressed over manual, repetitive tasks. Synoptek experts carried out a repertoire of activities including:
- Requirements and gap analysis to understand current processes and challenges.
- Business process improvement suggestions to enhance operational efficiency.
- Ensuring that the client’s customers are satisfied with order processing and fulfillment executed via the Field services application.
- UAT in real-time scenario to ensure developed solution works properly and aligns with business needs.
Business Benefits
Synoptek’s implementation services have resulted in a number of business benefits for the kitchen manufacturer.
- Improved transparency and tracking of work orders
- Faster delivery of products
- Improved customer satisfaction due to integration between field service application and e-commerce website
- Increased operational efficiency
- Good control over resource capacity and scheduling
- Enhanced integration internal operations
- Better resource efficiency
- Elimination of data duplication