Candelsa: digital transformation of a buying group

Context

Candelsa is a buying group for appliances, consumer electronics and new technologies with more than 50 years of history. It operates in seven Spanish regions under the Euronics, Tien 21 and Confort banners, with more than 200 associated points of sale as well as its online store.

Starting point (2017)

In 2017, coinciding with a change in the executive team, the company made a strategic decision: to bet on innovation and put technology first again. Although technology had always been present, the day-to-day dynamics had left needs unmet that translated into a lack of support for the business.

• ERP

  Data robustness and performance problems, running on very outdated infrastructure and hardware.

• Operations

  Manual processes that could not be automated, repetitive costs and logistics and internal-structure problems that affected customers and suppliers.

• B2B

  A platform that did not provide the support needed, when B2B is the company’s main business.

What we did

We combined in-house development, where it created competitive advantage, with specialised partners on the most complex projects.

• 2017 — 2018 · In-house B2B

  A new B2B project with integration built in-house, with no third-party dependency. 2018 was a before and after in the relationship with partners: more direct, in real time and with all stock information available.

• Architecture renewed layer by layer

  A global digital strategy with key business integrations: a product information database (PIM) that centralises suppliers’ merchandise data across all platforms, and EDI order integration.

• 2021 · SAP S/4HANA ERP

  Implemented together with Seidor, changing the core of the system and automating logistics and purchasing administration processes.

• B2C ecommerce

  Transition to Magento 2 (Adobe Commerce) together with Somos Sinapsis.

• Robotic warehouse

  ERP integration with the automated warehouse, where the product moves by itself to the operator along smart lanes.

• Infrastructure

  Migration of on-premise infrastructure to the cloud.

Results

These results are those stated in the CIO España feature (October 2022) and in the TPV Online case study; they are company data.

• Automation of many logistics and purchasing administration processes, and EDI integration of orders from the major suppliers, with fewer manual tasks.

• Less incident handling with partners and logistics, and higher customer satisfaction.

• Better goods-handling times in the warehouse and time savings in logistics, processing and delivery notes.

• A faster sales recovery after the pandemic thanks to the new ERP.

• A €5M investment since 2017, including the renewal of all systems, which the company sees as investment rather than expense, with an impact on the P&L.

Next phase (2022)

With the core of the architecture stabilised, the focus moved to the digital transformation of the stores: renewing the POS and the in-store payment app, integrating the Miró stores into processes and operations, and a CRM to better understand customers’ incidents and work with them more directly.