“Now that 100% of our invoices are processed automatically and are entirely electronic, we have seen substantial benefits, in terms of processing time, in terms of the efficiency of all the services delivered and in terms of customer satisfaction.”
Nicolas Landois, Director of the Société des Transports Landois (STL)
About the Société des Transports Landois
Founded over 60 years ago, the Société des Transports Landois is a family business specialised in the refrigerated transport of goods, more particularly in the food industry. Based in Brittany, the company covers a large area of France and serves in particular the regions of Burgundy, Grand-Est, Rhône-Alpes, and PACA, in addition to the North of France and the Paris region through its subsidiary JL Trans Distribution. At the same time, the company has also developed a storage activity for industrial products in its site in Brittany, which is located in Saint-Agathon, as well as in its new site in Mâcon. It has major resources at its disposal, including two warehouses of 25,830 and 10,760 sq. ft (2,400 and 1,000 m2), a workshop for vehicle maintenance and around 50 lorries and articulated lorries (i.e., about a hundred related vehicle registration documents). The Landois Group, which has been experiencing robust growth for several years with an overall turnover of €18M achieved by 80 employees with more than 500 customers, launched a vast digital transformation project for its management tool in 2018 with the dual objective of improving the quality of its service and customer satisfaction, as well as the working conditions of its 60 drivers.
The Problem
According to Nicolas Landois, “the main challenge of our project, which we launched four years ago, was to automate and centralise the management of our various activities at our Head Office. At the same time, we wanted to modernise our information system by starting with the existing system and redeveloping new business applications that were agile, communicative, and accessible on the road. The second challenge was to be able to connect these applications to our existing accounting software (Sage), while providing our employees with modern tools to optimise their work time.”
Transports Landois then approached their integration partner, IT Solutions, and asked them to set up a global, easy-to-use management solution, capable of covering the entire customer cycle from order taking and the organisation of rounds all the way through to the issuing of delivery notes and, ultimately, invoices (based on predefined customer and item codes).
Jean-Philippe Martin, Director of IT Solutions, said: “With 200 invoices issued per week, Transports Landois mainly wanted to have an electronic solution that was directly linked to their accounting software, thus enabling them to automatically generate invoices in PDF format from the delivery notes issued, while avoiding re-entries and the risks of error that are associated with them.”
The Solution
Following a complete study of the transporter’s needs and business expectations, IT Solutions turned to Magic Software and more specifically its Magic xpa application platform to develop a customised solution that is outwards oriented.
It is worth noting that Magic xpa’s code-free platform allows the rapid design and deployment of mobile, multi-platform applications that meet the complex needs of companies as part of their digital transformation. In addition, it offers a rich and personalised user experience thanks to its embedded visual design interface and its architecture based on reusable component models.
Today, all the transporter’s invoices are electronic and are sent to its customers in PDF format, with each customer having a dedicated web space accessible through a portal. In addition, the solution developed allows for automated monthly reminders, generating considerable time savings and making the collection and management of its revenues much more efficient.
Nicolas Landois continued: “At the same time, we have commissioned other modules that allow us to manage our drivers’ schedules and absences, the associated work contracts, and the maintenance of our vehicles in our workshop – all of this through the Magic xpa platform.”
This last point provides real added value for the transporter which can therefore trace the monitoring of each vehicle and thus generate statistics and optimise their maintenance costs.
The Benefits
Nicolas Landois concluded by saying: “Now that 100% of our invoices are processed automatically and are entirely electronic, we have seen substantial benefits, in terms of processing time, in terms of the efficiency of all the services delivered and in terms of customer satisfaction.”
He added: “For the time being, we have eliminated almost all our old Excel spreadsheets, as well as the multiple entries that represent a real risk of error and are a waste of time for our employees. Eventually, and by the end of 2022, we would like to make the process of sending delivery notes to our drivers entirely electronic, as all their vehicles are already geolocated in real time and equipped with tablets.”
Thanks to the solution developed in collaboration with Magic Software and deployed by IT Solutions, Transports Landois now has a modern, flexible, and scalable management system. This system will allow the transporter to develop new applications on demand as its activities expand, while working towards the paperless objective it has set itself.
