Rexel Europe
Business objective
Rexel wanted to increase efficiency, maintain transparency, and maximise time spent on customer service by reducing the time spent on manual processes across the supply chain.
Business benefits
This allows Rexel to avoid manually carrying out purchase orders, granting the opportunity to dedicate time to better serving their customers and growing their business.
B2BE solutions
Rexel increases efficiency with Sales Order Automation to maximise the time spent on customer service
Rexel is a world wide expert in the multichannel professional distribution of products and services for the energy world. The group supports its residential, commercial, and industrial customers by providing a tailored and scalable range of products and services in the energy management for construction, renovation, production, and maintenance. Headquartered in Paris, the Rexel group’s origins date back to 1967.
Rexel operates through a network of over 1,900 branches in 24 countries, with 63 logistics centers and more than 26,000 employees worldwide. In 2021, the group’s sales were €14.7 billion (56% in Europe, 35% in North America, and 9% in Asia-Pacific).
Rexel operates through a network of over 1,900 branches in 24 countries, with 63 logistics centers and more than 26,000 employees worldwide. In 2021, the group’s sales were €14.7 billion (56% in Europe, 35% in North America, and 9% in Asia-Pacific).
Rexel strives to offer their customers innovative and sustainable solutions to improve the comfort, security, and energy performance of installations, infrastructures, and buildings.
Energy efficiency, renewable energies, intelligent consumption management, and electric mobility are at the heart of Rexel’s offer. Everywhere it operates, the group ensures that its activities comply with the most rigorous ethical standards. In addition, as a promoter of energy management services and solutions, Rexel places the energy transition at the heart of its value creation strategy, confirming both its ambition and its commitment to help build a sustainable future.
The challenge
Rexel wanted to maximize the amount of time that their sales teams spent focusing on responding to customers’ needs, rather than spending it manually carrying out purchase orders sent by offline customers via e-mail. B2BE’s EDI automated solution, purchase with order entries, therefore represented a key for Rexel teams to increase order processing efficiency and focus more on customer service.
As part of the generic Customer EDI offering, Rexel expressed an interest in managing inbound e-mail orders from its clients located in several countries and converting them into EDI orders for upload into each country’s respective Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) solutions, optimizing their purchase order process. Rexel chose to adopt an outsourced service approach that would not require salesperson the to spend an unnecessary amount of time and effort running the automated sales solution themselves, while also keeping the process as transparent as possible for their staff.
In the framework of this project, a non-EDI customer is defined as a Rexel client who is sending a PDF purchase order via e-mail to Rexel and who includes in each of their purchase orders all the information which is required by Rexel to be able to process the purchase orders successfully.
As part of the generic Customer EDI offering, Rexel expressed an interest in managing inbound e-mail orders from its clients located in several countries and converting them into EDI orders for upload into each country’s respective Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) solutions, optimizing their purchase order process. Rexel chose to adopt an outsourced service approach that would not require salesperson the to spend an unnecessary amount of time and effort running the automated sales solution themselves, while also keeping the process as transparent as possible for their staff.
In the framework of this project, a non-EDI customer is defined as a Rexel client who is sending a PDF purchase order via e-mail to Rexel and who includes in each of their purchase orders all the information which is required by Rexel to be able to process the purchase orders successfully.
The solution
The OCR software provided by B2BE, once the PDF order has been received e-mail, performs several functions to facilitate the extraction of the purchase order data from any type of document and from any source, as well as identifying and sorting purchase orders using machine learning. This way, the solutions can detect whether an incoming document is a purchase order, a request for a quote, an invoice, or any other type of document that will require specific processing.
The EDI solution can extract the purchase order’s metadata, receiving alerts on any order errors or exceptions and allowing users to rectify issues and implement updates.
Finally, they will be able to feed directly into the B2BE EDI environment for data enrichment, translation, and mapping into the required format for Rexel’s system. On this basis, B2BE creates a “generic” Rexel purchase order capture configuration which then extracts the data based on Rexel’s required information. When a Rexel client’s purchase order The Result cannot be extracted using the generic via capture configuration approach, a custom capture configuration for that client is created. This approach is usually required when a client’s order line information is more complicated, such as when item numbers and descriptions are in a single block of information. Rexel staff can add metadata variables to the maps so that the software can recognize more intricate information.
In addition, the B2BE EDI environment is the backbone for automated and The B2BE solution is currently implemented by Rexel in several European countries including France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Portugal. It automatically processes several tens of thousands of purchasing orders per month. This solution allows Rexel’s sales people to avoid having to manually carry out purchase orders, giving them the opportunity to dedicate this saved time to better serving their customers and growing their business. The solution has also helped to improve the stability of Rexel’s business in challenging situations, such as during the COVID health crisis, which did not have an impact on sales backed by this resilient, automated solution. seamless transmission of data between back-end systems, without the need for human intervention.
The B2BE EDI network facilitates the document and data transmission between B2BE and Rexel’s system to enable the upload of orders from non-EDI customers into the OCR platform. Customers send their purchase orders to Rexel, and these purchase orders are then forwarded to B2BE via e-mail. Therefore, this sales automation process is completely transparent for both Rexel staff and customers.
The B2BE EDI network facilitates the document and data transmission between B2BE and Rexel’s system to enable the upload of orders from non-EDI customers into the OCR platform. Customers send their purchase orders to Rexel, and these purchase orders are then forwarded to B2BE via e-mail. Therefore, this sales automation process is completely transparent for both Rexel staff and customers.
The result
The B2BE solution is currently implemented by Rexel in several European countries including France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Portugal. It automatically processes several tens of thousands of purchasing orders per month. This solution allows Rexel’s sales people to avoid having to manually carry out purchase orders, giving them the opportunity to dedicate this saved time to better serving their customers and growing their business. The solution has also helped to improve the stability of Rexel’s business in challenging situations, such as during the COVID health crisis, which did not have an impact on sales backed by this resilient, automated solution.