Retail company Cellbes, with roots that go back to 1954 and the mail order era, is today one of Northern Europe's leading e-commerce groups. Cellbes has headquarters in Borås and operations in nine European countries, with the ambition to expand further.
- iCore takes overall responsibility, acts as our strategic "sounding board" and provides advice on issues that affect the entire IT structure - not just what goes through the integration platform, says Magnus Vestergaard, System Manager at Cellbes.
The retail industry is highly competitive. Companies need to be extremely cost efficient, while also delivering a smooth customer experience including easy purchases and fast deliveries. Cellbes started working with iCore in 2022 and was looking for a modern ERP and an IT partner that had delivery capacity and a strategic approach. They wanted a loosely coupled IT architecture with system independence to be able to easily and quickly change and upgrade systems adapted to Cellbe's operations, where best-of-breed is a keyword.
The challenges in their current operation were many. For example, Cellbes had to manage a large amount of manual work, where information was sent back and forth between units and suppliers, which was time-consuming and could cause errors.
The integration platform enables increased automation
Early in the project, Cellbes connected their systems to iCore's integration platform which reduces the amount of manual work while also making it easier to connect and disconnect systems to the IT infrastructure.
One of the first projects iCore and Cellbes carried out together was also to implement a Digital Asset Management (or DAM) system. It manages all the organization's digital assets used in the CMS, on the intranet, e-commerce platform, documents, media bank and more. Among other things, Cellbes wanted to get better control over the organization's images, and to be able to easily share information between, for example, the purchasing department and photographers.
Cellbes also switched financial systems from Microsoft Dynamics to Dynamics 365 Business Central, which enables connection between new systems, ERPs and invoice systems.
- We experience several systemic advantages. The best thing is probably that we can monitor all data in one and the same place. Should we ever need to replace a system, it's easy, and in that we get a lot of help from iCore.
We experience several systemic advantages. The best thing is probably that we can monitor all data in one and the same place. Should we ever need to replace a system, it's easy, and in that we get a lot of help from iCore.
Magnus Vestergaard, System Manager at Cellbes
Increased data control and visibility
Today, Cellbes has greater control over the organization's data flows, and can see what is sent and received - both internally and thge data exchange with suppliers and partners. This has also contributed to an increase in the degree of automation, with reduced manual hands-on work as a result.
Cellbes' IT environment is now cloud-based, with the help of iCore Cloud Services. It gives employees easy access to data, anywhere and anytime.
- iCore has a project-oriented and strategic role that takes responsibility and listens to our needs. The collaboration works very well, there are frequent dialogues that we appreciate, says Magnus Vestergaard, System Manager at Cellbes.
The goal going forward is to continue growing, with the Nordics being a priority market. In a competitive industry, it is important to be at the forefront when it comes to IT organization and structure. Cellbes plans to add more systems via iCore in the future, to increase flexibility and improve the ability to mointor their data.
About Cellbes
Cellbes AB is one of Northern Europe's leading retail / e-commerce groups. The group, which has Swedish ownership with headquarters in Borås, has a turnover of approx. 600 million and has operations in a total of nine European countries. In Sweden, there are approximately 100 employees and sales are dominated by fashion via e-commerce.
