Groupe Leclerc Gives Representatives New Mission, New Tools
Groupe Leclerc acknowledges the fundamental value of information, more than ever an essential element to optimize its position in the market. To harness its full potential, the company has entrusted its representatives with a new, broader mission, and makes a point of procuring for them the tools required to fulfill that mission in the most efficient way.
We then replaced the mobile order-taking application put in place in the early 2000’s with a brand new software solution. Representatives are now expected to play a much stronger role as market developers, with the ability to analyze opportunities. For an application adapted to that new reality, the final choice has been the Companion® Suite, by CIS Group, which will be installed as a Cloud service, and configured for the iOS operating system on the mobile devices – iPads in this instance.
This shift in methods also happens as most of the company’s major clients have instituted delivery to warehouses as the distribution model. Therefore, the new role of representatives is evolving towards that of compliance controllers: commercial agreements, planogram validation, flyers, inventory control. Functions for the capture of information on competing products will also help them contribute to the company’s strategic watch.
The organization wishes to be able to harness the full potential of big data, to evaluate all existing opportunities. The Companion® Suite does provide an efficient management dashboard that will integrate all aspects of merchandising and will provide business intelligence reports that can then be transmitted to the mobile users.
Another result and important advantage of the change of application is the definitive disappearance of paper documents: presentation of new products, planograms, bill-back authorizations, and credits. Finally, the data pertaining to all transactions will be processed via an interface in order to synchronize Companion® Office and SAP R3, the company’s ERP system.
About Groupe Leclerc
Founded in 1905 by François Leclerc, Groupe Leclerc has known remarkable growth in the last 25 years with over 1,100 employees and eight ultramodern plants. The plants are located in the François-Leclerc industrial park in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, Hawkesbury, and Cornwall in Ontario, in Montgomery, Pennsylvania, in Kingsport, Tennessee, and in Phoenix, Arizona. Specialized in the production of cookies, snack bars, and crackers, the company exports its products to more than 25 countries. Recognized as a pioneering enterprise, Leclerc satisfies the tastes and expectations of a discerning, health-conscious clientele that likes to enjoy the pleasure of eating.