Aptean Distribution ERP Success Story: BIA Cordon Bleu
Aptean Distribution ERP Success Story: BIA Cordon Bleu
Aptean Distribution ERP Success Story: BIA Cordon Bleu
Apr 29, 2021
Transcript:
We're a company founded in 1952, so we're almost seventy years old. It was founded by a couple of guys from Belgium, hence the "BIA" is Belgium Import Association. We went live on Apprise in April 1st, 2014. We recently upgraded to 8.0. and now we're upgrading again to 8.11. And, so we we're going strong with Apprise.
In terms of the workflow, Apprise itself is very intuitive, it's very laid out in kind of the right order. So it goes from what you would naturally have in this industry of taking orders, fulfilling orders, shipping orders, invoicing orders and then sending information to the customer. Very cyclical, very controlled, but also very consistent.
Apprise has drastically exceeded our expectations in terms of responsiveness to those needs. They listen to us, they hear what we're saying and they're responsive to create the screens or change the process or change maybe the workflow so that it works in the real world, and then we're able to actually fulfill our customers' orders quicker.
One of the key aspects of Apprise is that it tracks so much information at every level of packaging. So most of our products have three levels of packaging. And all of those cannot natively be dropped onto concrete eighteen times, which is really the industry standard now for drop-shipping. What Apprise allows us to do is to have all of the information for every unit of measure that is needed so that we can feed other systems and create boxes or create materials or create processes that enable us to pack our products in a way that will, when we do drop test them to be able to fulfill these dot com needs that with our products, even get to the customer without being dust.
And that's been a big challenge, but Apprise gives us the ability and has the fields and tracks all of that data at that granular level so that we can actually do that. Many other systems out there just don't track it at that level. And, then also give you the ability to grab that data out of the system and feed it to other systems so that you can complete the cycle.
When we were looking for an ERP system to help our business grow, one of the key things that we found with Apprise was it provides a extraordinarily solid platform to be able to build the business on. Our previous system was kind of piecemealed together. It was built for something else. Apprise is purpose-built for the import industry and the distribution of goods.
Right now, you see this huge shift of four thousand years of commerce being transformed in the last ten-to-fifteen years by the dot com revolution. And it has created extraordinary challenges for businesses like ours. When we have a lot of good habits from almost seventy years of being in business, but we have some old legacy habits as well. And we've had to really adapt to those changes and Apprise has provided that solid foundation for us to be able to meet those challenges and then be able to grow with them, find new ways, open up those channels of distribution, those channels of selling so that we can fulfill not only our traditional customers but also the customers of the future.
My experience with Apprise has been one of partnership. Apprise has not only provided us a solid foundation for us to build our business on, but one of the things that they've also done is really keep their support architecture in-house. You're not having to deal with a third party vendor, a third party VAR, to be able to interface with Apprise. So when we have an issue and we log a ticket, we're talking to Apprise people, we're engaging with them, we're partnering with them and they want to partner with us as well. And that's part of the Apprise culture.
It seems that they've, they've really put an emphasis on meeting those customers where you are, engaging those customers, and then helping us as Apprise customers to then succeed. Because when we succeed, Apprise succeeds and customers get what they want. I have actually had the pleasure of talking to a lot Apprise prospective customers and that speaks to really the partnership that Apprise and BIA have developed over the years since we've partnered together.
What I love to do is when customers call me, or prospective customers call me, kind of run them through sort of our process and our journey and figure out where they are and then help them potentially also see where they can leverage some of the Apprise things or maybe challenges that they can see, or things that I've run into. And so what it's, what we're able to do is really almost then be an extension of Apprise as part of the Apprise family to say, listen, this is this is why we chose them.
This is why we're succeeding with them. This is why we're able to do the things that we can do within our industry and that we, you know, if you continue down this road and eventually choose Apprise, they will partner with you on so that you can succeed and you can grow.
If your business wants to utilize our industry-specific distribution ERP software like BIA Cordon Bleu, contact us today to get started.
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