SELGA
The SELGA group, comprising SELGA, JME and MEAB, operates from 36 branches throughout Sweden. It is part of Rexel Group, world leader in the distribution of electrical parts and supplies.
SELGA products, including items such as cables, sockets, bulbs, switches and measuring equipment, account for some 60,000 articles.
The Challenge
SELGA offers a full service to retailers: orders from a printed catalogue, order-entry application supported on legacy systems to delivery via its own logistics network. In common with companies in all sectors, the business environment was changing fast. Globalization, new and innovative services, business process realignment and new technology were placing demands for rapid change.
Management wanted to deploy a Web-based portal that was fully integrated with legacy systems to retain the same levels of functionality as current. The portal needed to facilitate:
effective and efficient sales processes for customers
better understanding and ability to apply service excellence.
Deploying a full B2B Marketplace would require many extensions. To deliver real
benefit SELGA set the target between request and delivery of information - within
2 seconds!
Capgemini was already providing AM (Applications Management) services for legacy systems over a number of years. When SELGA discovered that Capgemini’s strengths extended to a wealth of E-Business skills and expertise, the company asked Capgemini: show us what you can do.
Capgemini Approach
The project was broken down into three phases: Design, Architecture and Development. One aspect in Design was to seek quick wins for SELGA, and elements included:
- setting up SELGA’s portal
- migrating a current application for printed catalogues to an online function
developing a prototype to test the vision.
Capgemini brought its technology consulting strengths to bear in the ensuing Architecture phase. A key, early recommendation was to use Microsoft Site Server on a Windows NT platform. The former lends itself to high customization, necessary to meet the need for speed. An example of facilitating quick wins was the use of flat files as interfaces from the portal to legacy systems. This reduced the required effort to develop and deliver working solutions to SELGA, quickly and cost efficiently.
The project team used an IAD (iterative application development) approach to rapidly demonstrate available options to SELGA management in the final phase. IAD facilitated a modular approach to build three pilots for discrete functions and deploy them in a controlled manner. Capgemini facilitated workshops at the end of each pilot to ensure that SELGA retained full control at each step of the way.
The pilots, deployed from several locations, were followed by comprehensive services for infrastructure management, which Capgemini commenced from our dedicated centre in Örebro.
Value Delivered
The fully integrated B2B solution results in service excellence from SELGA to its entire supply chain. Many customers registered their interest since SELGA announced the launch of the portal. The B2B was operational exactly to the day announced by SELGA.
The delivery of the service from Örebro offers a robust, future-proof platform, leveraging years of experience and best practice. The service applies flexibility, customisation and automation to make effective use of all resources. The result offers economies of scale to SELGA via workload levelling and resource pooling.
Regular surveys with management and users are a standard feature to measure service delivery and results often exceed SELGA’s expectations.