RAJA Chooses n.SKEP Retail Planning Solution "Ready To Plan" to Enhance Its Growth Strategy in Europe

STRASBOURG, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DynaSys, a division of QAD Inc., experts in solutions for Demand & Supply Chain Planning, today announced the RAJA Group has implemented DynaSys n.SKEP Retail Planning solution to enhance its growth strategy. The European leader in the distribution of packaging, business supplies and consumables, deployed DynaSys n.SKEP Retail Planning 'Ready To Plan' (RTP) solution as part of its plan to upgrade its IT systems. Using DynaSys Retail Planning Solution, RAJA plans to optimize demand planning and inventory management across RAJAPACK’s Europe-wide enterprise.

“One of the main reasons we chose n.SKEP is its conception oriented decisional”

The RAJA Group, founded in 1954, continues today to accelerate the growth of its business. The RAJA Group includes 18 subsidiaries that operate in 15 countries in which 1,350 employees service more than 500,000 customers. More than 10,000 products are distributed via RAJA Group’s 10 supply chain centers. To increase its capability to scale as an Effective Enterprise, the management team wanted to find an Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) solution to streamline and share information among its various subsidiaries in France and other countries.

In the search of the best solution, RAJA developed a list of requirements including the following:

Reliable forecast capabilities to show historical data (endogenous and exogenous) promotions, price cannibalism and order impact
Powerful optimization for supply planning, including safety stock
Robust management for minima and multiple orders either in quantity, value, or volume, as well as supporting quantity per pallet or truckload
Clear reporting and roadmaps to allow account managers to prioritize their daily activities
Optimized capabilities for budget monitoring
Simplified processes to facilitate trade-offs using simulations
Easy to integrate the planning system with their existing ERP software
Rapid deployment across its distributed business

Among the other solutions, RAJA Group was most impressed with DynaSys. They valued the powerful capabilities of the Retail Planning solution to help RAJA optimize its Supply Chain processes. And the RAJA team valued the deep expertise of the DynaSys team to work closely with RAJA IT to organize the implementation plan for a six-month go live date.

The n.SKEP RTP solution offers out-of-box capabilities for distribution in the retail industries – another key differentiator for RAJA.

The pre-configured Demand Planning and Procurement Planning solution, developed by DynaSys and based on the n.SKEP suite, allowed RAJA to rapidly implement the solution. However it also allows flexible configuration to accommodate changes that RAJA may require in the future.

The configurable n.SKEP solution enables RAJA to easily conduct collaborative group planning across their enterprise, as well as real-time sourcing of inventory. With n.SKEP Retail Planning, RAJA is able to allow purchases across multiple sites and simplify financial consolidations; and, it compares collaborative forecasting with actual sales.

According to Pauquet Renaud, head of supply at RAJA, "Stock availability is one of the key success factors of RAJA. Our existing ERP did not cover these needs, and we did not want to customize the legacy solution. We wanted to implement an APS expert solution, with extensive setting capabilities. The mode Ready To Plan of n.SKEP Retail Planning from DynaSys offers a standard setup, which allowed us, within a few weeks, to implement the standard solution and then to easily enhance it with our own indicators, our best practices and our know-how.”

The n.SKEP Demand Planning will help the company to measure and analyze sales, so as to refine its sales forecast upstream. In fact, contrary to what happens today, sales and forecast analysis with n.SKEP Retail Planning RTP may be performed on several areas: articles, sales channels, statistical family, warehouse, .... The possibilities forecast calculation will also be expanded: projected sales of new products enriched by the seasonality of product family, automatic alerts on intermittent sales, logging of marketing and sales campaign as well as alerts of such undetected seasonality, etc.

The n.SKEP Procurement Planning solution allows RAJA to optimize procurement and to define order and delivery plans from consumption forecasts. It should be noted that 50% of the RAJA Group’s suppliers operate with minimum orders (number of pallets, volume, weight ...), however, RAJA enterprise resource planning (ERP) was not able to issue orders based on supplier constraints -- the optimization needed to be done manually. Thanks to the n.SKEP solution, the ordered quantities can be adapted to existing constraints. This saves time and resources.

Using the n.SKEP solution, receiving and storage capabilities can be automated. The n.SKEP solution delivers alerts that indicate overages and / or storage capacity according to the needs.

“One of the main reasons we chose n.SKEP is its conception oriented decisional,” said Dominique Beccia, director of the RAJAWorld program. “The n.SKEP solution offers flexible configuration, and saves us from engaging in expensive customizations. We are particularly satisfied with the expertise of the DynaSys consultants. We found a very competent team – readily available. In addition, Dynasys provides very specific training that enables us to gain real autonomy in the configuration of the tool; this will allow us to evolve n.SKEP Retail Planning RTP along with our needs and organization to be more reactive. It is very important for a strategic project.”

Ariel Weil, CEO of DynaSys said, "DynaSys invested years perfecting our Retail Planning solution and rapid implementation methodology Ready To Plan. RAJA Group’s selection of DynaSys is a testament to our mission of evolving the best retail planning solution available today and in the future. In addition to its rapid implementation, n.SKEP Retail Planning and Ready To Plan methodology addresses all key business processes in RAJA’s industry, while remaining flexible, adaptable and scalable.“

About RAJA Group

For more than 60 years, the RAJA Group serves more than 500,000 customers across all industry sectors, serving customers of all sizes from major international corporations to small and medium-sized companies, sole traders and start-ups.

Implemented in 15 European countries across 18 companies, the RAJA Group is the leading distributor on these markets thanks to its passion for customer service and dynamic innovation combined with a know-how of its employees.

About DynaSys

DynaSys, a division of QAD Inc., provides Demand & Supply Chain Planning solutions. The DynaSys n.SKEP® suite provides an integrated and collaborative planning solution allowing businesses to optimize their supply chains, including Sales & Operations Planning, Demand Planning, Network & Inventory and business resources optimizations. DynaSys Software’s customers span multiple industries including food and beverages, Consumer Packaged Goods, life sciences, apparel, luxury, High Tech, automotive and Distribution & Retail.

For more information about DynaSys visit www.dys.com or email contact@dys.com.

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