Bartels-Langness, or simply Bela, is an owner-managed German grocery retailer and wholesaler that operates approximately 130 retail stores under the famila and Markant brands. Christian Hirdes, Bela’s SCM Project Manager, took time to share how they are using RELEX to improve supply chain transparency and remove planning silos across their retail and wholesale businesses.
Transcript
My name is Christian Hirdes. I’m 27 years old, and I’m responsible for the RELEX implementation project at Bartels-Langness.
For those of you who don’t know Bela, we are a family business founded in 1892, which is still run by the fourth generation of owners from Kiel. As is well known in the market, we work in silos, i.e. purchasing, logistics and sales are separate profit centers that work separately and are not linked to each other. The special thing about us is that we have linked a retail management company to the wholesale business with Famila and MARKANT.
The aim of RELEX is to integrate this supply chain and plan it end-to-end. We opted for the F&R module from RELEX because we have grown over decades as an owner-managed company and want to continue to map individual processes that characterize our DNA as a company. The business rules make it possible to tailor the system 1 to 1 to our needs and thus reflect Bela.
We are implementing together with the company Wysupp, which is the official implementation partner of RELEX. It is noteworthy that the whole thing takes place on an equal footing, i.e. partner to partner, a close alliance, which makes the work really pleasant.
So, it’s not an external company for us, not an external service provider, but we work hand in hand. Our vision with RELEX is to make our supply chain transparent and to link the silos with each other. At the same time, however, we want to maintain the DNA of the company, i.e. silo working in its processes, such as sales and purchasing.
As a food wholesaler, we have seen the crises that have dominated the market in recent years. With RELEX, we hope to make these more transparent and easier to plan and to be able to act in a more cost-optimized, faster, and more flexible manner.
