Ensure 24/7 customer service
Anyone who drives on Belgian highways fairly often has surely noticed them: Dematra’s white trucks with blue lettering are everywhere. And they’ve been that way since 1976. Since then, the East Flemish company has enjoyed steady growth. As a specialist in the storage of raw materials and finished products in the food sector, Dematra has been a reliable logistics partner for many major food companies for years. “To ensure further growth, an expansion of our current warehouse infrastructure was necessary,” explains Cedric De Jaeger, Continuous Improvement Manager and son of CEO Geert De Jaeger. “Last year, we completed our fourth distribution site. It is located in the De Prijkels expansion area in Nazareth. The entire project—construction and installation of all IT-infrastructure – lasted half a year. So it was a tough challenge, but one we overcame with flying colors together with Alistar.”
Alistar more than met our high expectations in this IT project.
Geert De Jaeger, CEO
That brand-new building houses Dematra’s non-food operations and is equipped with state-of-the-art IT facilities. Full wireless coverage throughout the building, Barracuda-firewalls and client devices: these are just a few of the projects Alistar has implemented. Thanks to the brand-new fiber connection, this new building is also connected to Dematra’s other locations. This is an essential requirement for Dematra to ensure its 24/7 customer service at all times.
How would you sum up Alistar's strengths in three words? Speed, flexibility, and reliability.
From IT Support to Virtual IT Manager
“Alistar’s work for Dematra originally served as an extension of the role our in-house IT manager had taken on,” explains Cedric De Jaeger. “In the early 2000s, we still had a single all-around IT manager who managed our entire infrastructure. Due to the many rapid changes, we gradually came to need more in-depth and specialized knowledge. That’s how Alistar came to work with Dematra. Today, we no longer have an in-house IT manager; instead, Alistar fully assumes that role as our virtual IT manager.”
The secret to smooth collaboration?
Dematra and Alistar turn out to share quite a few common values. “Both of our companies are very down-to-earth. Our entrepreneurial mindset keeps us firmly grounded in the field. We both strive to provide the best possible customer service and believe a personalized approach is extremely important. From day one, we’ve had an exceptionally good relationship with the Alistar consultants who support our projects. Alistar Consultant Nick regularly spends a day at our office. That way, we also get to know the people behind the IT solutions, which makes everything run even more smoothly.”
For Cedric, the construction of the new distribution center was the best proof of that seamless collaboration. “Our internal project manager coordinated and handled virtually the entire construction and IT installation together with Alistar without me having to be very involved myself. Groundbreaking took place in April 2020, and by the end of December of that same year, everything was up and running. To date, we haven’t detected a single IT issue. So we’re very satisfied with how the entire project went and with the applications that were implemented.”
“To me, this project shows that our long-standing collaboration is paying off. In the early stages, there was still some healthy tension. You have to get to know each other and feel each other out in many areas. But we soon felt a positive connection developing on both sides. It’s therefore gratifying when you realize that you and your IT partner make a good team in an IT case study like this one. The background knowledge Alistar has built up over the past few years about Dematra and our needs is what made the construction of our new building go so smoothly.”
Why do we have such great confidence? Because we know that Alistar stands by us even in difficult times.
Automation is the future
“Building on our past successes, we’re already looking ahead. That’s because a fourth, even larger building is set to be constructed at our site in De Prijkels in the near future, with capacity for 70,000 to 80,000 pallets. We want to equip that site with picking robots, and automation is the key to this project. That’s why everything hinges on a comprehensive and modern IT environment. And for that, we’re once again relying on Alistar. But we’re absolutely convinced that, together with Alistar, we’ll overcome this challenge in the best possible way.”
“Why is our trust so strong? Because we know that Alistar stands by us even in difficult times. Here’s an example from this IT case study to illustrate the point: one Friday evening, one of our employees told me there was a problem with external access to our IT systems. I immediately called Alistar’s on-call service, which took immediate action. The next day—on Saturday morning—I went to the company with two Alistar consultants, and together we managed to resolve the problem that very same day. This kept the disruption for our people to an absolute minimum. Moreover, this example clearly demonstrated to me the added value of Alistar. Just like in a marriage, there are good days and bad days. And it’s nice to know that even on the bad days, you can count on adequate service.”
A fast and reliable IT partner
“Summarize Alistar’s strengths in three words? Speed, flexibility, and reliability. Add to that a personal approach, and you have all the ingredients for a recipe for success. Having to call a general phone number for every IT problem, then give your customer number, and then wait until someone has time to answer your questions? That approach doesn’t serve our customers well. And they deserve our constant attention. That’s why every IT outage must be addressed as quickly as possible. And yes, at Dematra, we set quite high standards for our suppliers. But in return, we’re happy to commit to a long-term partnership. We see that same approach in our customers, too. They appreciate our ongoing dedication and passion for perfection. And that translates into strong, long-lasting partnerships.”
