According to Marc Nadeau, President and Founder of Bain Dépôt, the company’s mission is to provide “everything customers need to start planning their new bathroom or kitchen, with the best prices on the market.”
The company currently has more than 40 stores in Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and plans to open more locations in Western Canada.
Business case
In 2015, Bain Dépôt changed their eCommerce platform and experienced significant sales growth, so to keep up with increasing demand and volume of orders, the company decided to open a second warehouse. However, the new warehouse was located a great distance from all their other operations, which prevented the business from performing at its full potential.
At the same time, the company also realized the ERP system they were using was outdated, inhibiting them from getting the full value of new updates and functionality. The heavy customizations also made it extremely difficult and expensive to maintain. "We didn´t have the resources required to maintain the old system," explains Yuri Lachaine, Business Analyst at Bain Dépôt, “Nobody wanted to take care of it because it had been too heavily customized.”
With these issues in mind, the company decided they needed to switch to an easy-to-use business management software to achieve the following goals: reduce manual tasks, increase team agility, and achieve higher business performance.
Solution
Bain Dépôt contacted LS Retail partner Createch to ask if they could help improve warehouse efficiency. "This first project brought us efficiency, accuracy and ease of use," says Lachaine, “Without this, we would have suffered a lot from the growth that followed the implementation of our online sales platform."
As the first collaboration betwee both teams was highly effective, Bain Dépôt decided to call Createch again; this time for the implementation of their new business management software. When Createch demonstrated LS Central and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, especially the reporting and cross-selling capabilities, the company knew it was the right solution for them. Createch’s personalized approach and proven track record in LS Central implementations with similar businesses convinced Bain Dépôt that Createch was the right technology partner for the project.
The start of the implementation project coincided with the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic when several external and internal challenges emerged for the Bain Dépôt team. During the Covid-19 pandemic, sales in home improvement and renovation accelerated, and online sales soared due to people staying at home. At the same time, the company experienced the departure of several employees which led to an overload of work for the teams responsible for the implementation. "It stretched the implementation project,” says Lachaine, “Business Central is a big system that involves a lot of people, and its implementation took longer than we would have liked.” Fortunately, Bain Dépôt could rely on Createch to help them overcome these challenges and achieve their objectives. "Working with Createch has allowed us to develop a great continuity: at the end it was almost their team who explained the business of Bain Dépôt to newcomers," says Lachaine.
Benefits
After just a few months using their new POS and ERP solution, LS Central for retail, Bain Dépôt has already experienced many benefits, including:
- Speed execution that allows online sales 24/7 and continuous customer engagement
- Hassle-free onboarding of new employees. “LS Central is intuitive to use," says Marc Nadeau, “After just one hour of training, you know how it works.”
- LS Central and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central offer an array of productivity and intelligence tools that can be harnessed to boost efficiency. Bain Dépôt is confident that this will help them grow their business easily, allowing them to add functionality when they need it and open new stores quickly.
- Personalized customer experience and increased customer satisfaction. Customers can access stock availability online while in the stores, staff can let customers select and customize the products they want according to their needs.
- Increased opportunities for cross-selling. Employees can now see product availability and sales in real time, helping to simplify inventory management and maximize sales. If a product is not available, staff can easily check when it will be in stock again or recommend similar products."I knew the solution worked with our needs, but the biggest benefit is what it brought us in terms of clienteling and cross-selling,” says Nadeau, “This is a huge gain for us, because it allows us to close more sales."
With LS Retail technology and Createch's continuous support, Bain Dépôt is well-equipped for their next phase of growth. "Without LS Central, we wouldn't be talking about expansion today," says Nadeau, “It certainly puts us in the big league.” The company is now looking at unlocking the full potential of their new comprehensive platform, starting with enhancing the customer’s shopping experience through personalization.
