Vespo, a family-owned business based in Eindhoven, is a major player in the textile industry. For example, Vespo is the market leader in home textiles in the Benelux. One of the pillars of that success is the extensive collection of household textiles under Vespo’s own label, Walra. In addition, the company sells promotional textiles and workwear to businesses. The premium brand SANTINO, a rock-solid name when it comes to workwear, is Vespo’s own brand. The company has seven international purchasing offices and—when it comes to workwear—more than 2,000 resellers in the Benelux. Vespo sets itself apart from the competition with an exceptionally high level of service. From design, production, and logistics to inventory management; Vespo takes care of it all and delivers the right workwear or household textiles on demand.
Everything is standard
Vespo went live with Microsoft Dynamics NAV in 2016. “We made a very deliberate choice to work with the standard version of Dynamics NAV,” says Chief Operating Officer Marc Camerling. “No customization—that was our goal.” Camerling pursued the same goal when it came to Business Intelligence. “We have a tremendous amount of information. I want our people to be able to extract all kinds of useful information from the system, preferably through clear dashboards. What’s in our sales portfolio? Where do we stand? What are the margins per customer? Who are our best customers? How many picking lines do we process per hour? I want us to be able to quickly provide insight into that kind of information without complex customization.” In addition to off-the-shelf software, Camerling had another important criterion. He didn’t want running BI reports to impact the performance of the business system.
No customization—that was our goal.
Marc Camerling, Chief Operating Officer at Vespo
Careful Definitions
Alistar was able to meet all of Vespo’s requirements with Analytics4NAV, a ‘ready-to-use’ BI environment based on Microsoft BI that integrates seamlessly with Dynamics NAV. With this solution, Vespo can monitor all of its performance metrics through financial reports, sales dashboards, and an analysis of its operational processes. Analytics4NAV places virtually no strain on the operational system. The solution creates an intermediate layer. In this layer, all relevant data is stored in carefully defined objects. Camerling: “When you talk about margin, for example, you have to determine in advance whether it includes or excludes payment discounts. Together with Alistar, we gave those definitions a lot of thought. Now that all definitions are clear, there is a single, central version of the truth. We have a sandbox where we can play around with all the available data to our heart’s content.”
Now that all the definitions are clear, there is a single, authoritative version of the truth.
Marc Camerling, Chief Operating Officer at Vespo
Practical dashboards
Immediately after the implementation of Analytics4NAV, Vespo had access to clear reports and a number of practical dashboards that provide a nearly real-time view. This is just the beginning. Camerling: “With Analytics4NAV, we’re establishing an information infrastructure. We’re going to do a lot more with it to optimize our quality and customer engagement. I want to be able to see exactly what our delivery rate is. How much do we deliver ‘on time and in full’? How do our customers perceive us? Vespo, a family-owned business, has become very successful based on gut instinct. But if we want to continue growing, gut instinct alone is no longer enough. With Analytics4NAV, we’re moving from emotion to reason.”
