CENTRALISED PRODUCT MAPPER WEB PORTAL TO PROVIDE AND MANAGE A UNIFIED VIEW OF PRODUCTS SOLD ACROSS THE BRANCH NETWORK AND PORTFOLIO COMPANIES

TRANSFORMATION OF BUILDERS MERCHANT GROUP

CENTRALISED PRODUCT MAPPER WEB PORTAL ACROSS COMPANIES AND BRANCH NETWORK

TRANSFORMATION OF BUILDERS MERCHANT GROUP

CENTRALISED PRODUCT MAPPER WEB PORTAL ACROSS COMPANIES AND BRANCH NETWORK

The business operates through six divisions, with the core builders’ merchant branches supported by a network of specialty plumbing and heating, roofing and electrical branches, a dedicated timber processing and distribution business, and a strong online presence. The group today has more than 140 branches operating across the south of England. The Central Commercial team needed to run rebate calculations to work out the correct discounts to apply to suppliers. Due to the heterogeneous nature of systems, it was impossible to get a single, unified view of the same products and suppliers across multiple branches and portfolio companies to support supplier price negotiations.

WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES?

Multiple ERPs across different portfolio companies
Multiple points of contact, stakeholders and process owners
Infrastructure setup constraints including configurations managed by multiple vendors
Existing manual mapping activity did not cover full population of products
Short project deadline

SO, WHAT DID WE DO?

Our agile REBOT methodology was used to structure the project into three development sprints for execution.
Regular interactive sessions were held with all stakeholders to capture comprehensive business requirements that were signed off prior to development starting.
We designed a solution that addressed both tactical and strategic objectives, providing the flexibility to cater for future requirements that might arise from further business acquisitions.
A Cloud-based “Product Mapper Portal” was built using latest technology stack:
- Front-end: Angular, Google’s powerful JavaScript/Typescript based framework
- Middleware: Node JS, a lightweight JS framework for server with the power of npm libraries to expedite development
- Database: Azure SQL Database
- ERP Data Sync: Azure Data Factory pipelines and activities were used to refresh portal data from different ERP Source systems at defined frequencies
- Security: Azure Key Vault and Azure API Gateway policies (including API limit, DDoS prevention, Firewall etc.) to provide security to the portal data over REST APIs
Daily Scrum calls, focused on achieving timely goals, enabling client feedback for regular releases.
A dedicated team provided testing as a service (TaaS) ensuring high-quality testing was performed not just on the web portal but also on data migration (a single migration of millions of records).
Effective support during User Acceptance Testing (UAT) ensured timely delivery and drove rapid signoff from the business.
Regular, focused meetings with stakeholders ensured all project dependencies were managed correctly and project progress was communicated effectively

Results

The Product Mapper Portal now sources Product data across the different ERP Sources (3+) and unifies them as a Master Product (using appropriate product codings/groupings) to allow for 100% accurate supplier rebate calculations and discounting. This has allowed for re-tendering and improved pricing negotiations across multiple suppliers and is estimated to reduce supply costs by 6%.

DO YOU NEED TO DIGITALLY OPTIMISE YOUR BUSINESS?

WE’RE EXPERTS
IN OUR FIELD

We are experts in what we do. Committed professionals who are at the leading edge of our specialised field.

GET IN TOUCH

WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES?

Multiple ERPs across different portfolio companies
Multiple points of contact, stakeholders and process owners
Infrastructure setup constraints including configurations managed by multiple vendors
Existing manual mapping activity did not cover full population of products
Short project deadline

SO, WHAT DID WE DO?

Our agile REBOT methodology was used to structure the project into three development sprints for execution.
Regular interactive sessions were held with all stakeholders to capture comprehensive business requirements that were signed off prior to development starting.
We designed a solution that addressed both tactical and strategic objectives, providing the flexibility to cater for future requirements that might arise from further business acquisitions.
A Cloud-based “Product Mapper Portal” was built using latest technology stack:
- Front-end: Angular, Google’s powerful JavaScript/Typescript based framework
- Middleware: Node JS, a lightweight JS framework for server with the power of npm libraries to expedite development
- Database: Azure SQL Database
- ERP Data Sync: Azure Data Factory pipelines and activities were used to refresh portal data from different ERP Source systems at defined frequencies
- Security: Azure Key Vault and Azure API Gateway policies (including API limit, DDoS prevention, Firewall etc.) to provide security to the portal data over REST APIs
Daily Scrum calls, focused on achieving timely goals, enabling client feedback for regular releases.
A dedicated team provided testing as a service (TaaS) ensuring high-quality testing was performed not just on the web portal but also on data migration (a single migration of millions of records).
Effective support during User Acceptance Testing (UAT) ensured timely delivery and drove rapid signoff from the business.
Regular, focused meetings with stakeholders ensured all project dependencies were managed correctly and project progress was communicated effectively

Results

The Product Mapper Portal now sources Product data across the different ERP Sources (3+) and unifies them as a Master Product (using appropriate product codings/groupings) to allow for 100% accurate supplier rebate calculations and discounting. This has allowed for re-tendering and improved pricing negotiations across multiple suppliers and is estimated to reduce supply costs by 6%.

DO YOU NEED TO
DIGITALLY OPTIMISE
YOUR BUSINESS?

We are experts in what we do. Committed professionals who are at the leading edge of our specialised field.

GET IN TOUCH

OTHER EXAMPLES

OF OUR WORK

ALL CASE STUDIES

ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURER

Panamoure Consulting was approached by a PE fund to perform a pre-acquisition IT Due Diligence review on an upcoming lower mid-cap target who designed and manufactured electronic component boards for the defence, aviation, automotive and energy sectors.

HEALTHCHECK SAVES FIRM FROM POTENTIAL £10M OVERSPEND

PE investors in a global manufacturing and logistics firm were concerned that the Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP implementation underway was over budget and underperforming so asked Panamoure to undertake a health check of the implementation.

HEALTH CHECK RECOVERS FAILING ERP PROJECT

A small business carve-out had a transitional service agreement (TSA) to decouple itself from the parent company systems within 6 months of separation. A project manager had been hired to help get the system delivered but 4 months in, the deadline was looming and the Sage 500 ERP project was heading for failure.

TRANSFORMATION OF BUILDERS MERCHANT GROUP

CENTRALISED PRODUCT MAPPER​ WEB PORTAL ACROSS COMPANIES​ AND BRANCH NETWORK​

TRANSFORMATION OF BUILDERS MERCHANT GROUP

CENTRALISED PRODUCT MAPPER​ WEB PORTAL ACROSS COMPANIES​ AND BRANCH NETWORK​

WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES?

SO, WHAT DID WE DO?

Results

WHAT WERE THE CHALLENGES?

SO, WHAT DID WE DO?

Results

OTHER EXAMPLES

OF OUR WORK

CENTRALISED PRODUCT MAPPER WEB PORTAL ACROSS COMPANIES AND BRANCH NETWORK

CENTRALISED PRODUCT MAPPER WEB PORTAL ACROSS COMPANIES AND BRANCH NETWORK