In addition to being the supplier for the Danish Royal Court and Copenhagen's oldest wine shop, Kjær & Sommerfeldt is also one of the country's leading suppliers for the hospitality industry and other businesses. Today, the company supplies wine to more than 1,200 companies and 1,500 hotels, restaurants, and cafés.
Business case
Kjær & Sommerfeldt's rapid growth challenged their IT infrastructure, which was not built to support their expansion. The company started facing scalability issues, integration challenges, and poor data management. They also struggled to gain insights and analyze information efficiently, which not only slowed down decision-making, but also made it difficult to spot opportunities on the market.
To address their challenges, Kjær & Sommerfeldt decided to invest in a more flexible and scalable IT solution. They began searching for a solution that would enable them to streamline daily operations, improve customer service, and support continued growth.
Solution
The company identified LS Central as the ideal solution to meet their operational needs and improve the customer experience. LS Central is a retail management software that extends Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with advanced functionality for retailers, covering point of sale (POS), eCommerce, inventory management, loyalty, and more.
After finding the right solution, the company needed the right partner for implementation and ongoing support, which they found in LS Retail partner, twoday. With its omnichannel strategy, Kjær & Sommerfeldt aims to reach customers everywhere. In this context, Mathias Toftdal Christensen, IT Manager at Kjær & Sommerfeldt, values having an engaged partner who offers realistic and critical insights. "twoday understands our business and processes," says Christensen, "we have a partnership with them, not just a customer relationship: they are as committed to getting things done properly as we are."
Benefits
According to Kjær and Sommerfeldt, there are five main benefits to using the LS Central solution:
- LS Central does more than just a POS
The flexibility and modular approach to the LS Central software convinced Kjær & Sommerfeldt to adopt it as their new business management solution. “LS Central seamlessly integrates with our eCommerce platform, ERP system, and warehouse solution, ensuring a cohesive ecosystem,” says Christensen. “This streamlined approach frees up frontline employees, enabling them to focus wholeheartedly on delivering exceptional service without distraction.”
- LS Central provides all key business information in one centralized platform
LS Central provides real-time access to inventory and sales data, whether for a single store or a multi-location business. "The greatest advantages of LS Central are that changes in inventory and pricing are reflected instantly at the POS, and therefore, not much time is spent on the system," says Christensen. “It simply works and allows our employees to focus on advising our customers on wine.”
With complete control over their data, Kjær & Sommerfeldt is prepared for new initiatives and challenges. "LS Central is a complete system that is easy and quick to use, and there are no issues when you have requests outside the box,” says Christensen. “We have many specific requirements for our business, and LS Central can handle those too."
- LS Central is designed to serve both retail and hospitality industries
Kjær & Sommerfeldt recently added wine bars to some of their stores, which brought new and unique IT requirements. Leveraging LS Central’s flexibility, the wine wholesaler can manage their wine bar operations on the same platform they use for the rest of the business.
When a wine bar employee serves customers, the POS shows a visual layout of the bar's tables. This makes it easy for the employees at the bar to create open bills and associate them with specific tables. Customers can order additional items on the same bill without having to pay immediately. And all data from the wine bar is immediately updated in the ERP system. "LS Central doesn't just support a regular cash register: we can even create open bills in our wine bars,” says Christensen, “It's great that we have everything consolidated in one system: LS Central supports what we want, and we're not dependent on conforming to the system.”
- LS Central brings together physical and online stores
According to Mathias Toftdal Christensen, interconnecting channels is crucial for consistency across channels and ensuring a seamless customer experience. LS Central maintains consistent pricing across physical and online stores and automatically updates inventory when items are purchased. This guarantees that customers receive the same excellent service whether they interact with Kjær & Sommerfeldt in a brick-and-mortar location or on the website.
- LS Central is a secure, reliable system
The team at Kjær & Sommerfeldt wanted to be able to continue serving customers even if the internet connection was momentarily lost. This is now possible using the LS Central POS, which remains operational even if the internet goes out. Once the connection is restored, LS Central promptly updates the master data to the main system, which gives the company a sense of security and preparedness for unexpected Wi-Fi issues.
The company is confident that LS Central is the ideal solution for its business operations and objectives.
