Success: How Pepco Launched a New Web Store Within 20 Days

100% transformation

of the business and GTM strategy

20-day

web store implementation timeline

Real-time integration

with Microsoft Dynamics NAV

The challenge

Leveraging e-commerce for complete business transformation during COVID-19

When Pepco approached Sana Commerce, their organization had long been researching alternatives for an e-commerce solution for their business. However, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pepco found the catalyst they had been looking for to finally push them to take the leap into online commerce.

Pepco decided to pivot their business entirely to start manufacturing hand sanitizer: essential items in high demand at the time. Hoping to meet immediate, urgent needs during a global public health crisis, the business aimed to do their part to help the community, but also to leverage their business agility to help their organization come out of an uncertain period stronger than before.

But the business had a team of back-office salespeople who were already too inundated with orders to keep up with demand. Pepco quickly realized they needed an online channel. Recognizing that they also needed to be able to manage the subsequent surge in customer demand in a way that was efficient, scalable, and easy, the organization decided to invest in a Sana Commerce web store.

We chose Sana Commerce primarily due to the direct integration with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. It’s an approach I hadn’t seen before. We didn’t want to have a manual process be necessary to bridge the two systems (ERP and e-commerce). We wanted a streamlined process and to minimize manual work and the risk of order errors. The Sana Commerce team could deliver this, in the right timeframe, and the configuration was simple.

Luc Pepin | CEO of Pepco

The solution

Dynamics NAV-integrated e-commerce launched in under 3 weeks

For Pepco, choosing Sana Commerce primarily centered around three key factors: ERP integration, reliability, and speed. Pepco needed an e-commerce solution provider that could not only offer improved efficiency across processes and help minimize their internal teams’ workload, but also one that could be implemented in the record-setting timeframe of only 20 days and be easily maintained. Thanks to Sana’s ERP-integrated approach, this was all made possible.

Here’s what made the Pepco-Sana Commerce project impactful:

Within a single day, Pepco reached out to Sana Commerce, watched a product demo, and signed a contract for their proposed 20-day implementation project.
To make a 2.5-week project runtime possible, Sana made adjustments to their standard project implementation process, and used this streamlined version with Pepco.
While Sana focused on the web store launch, Pepco’s ERP partner, Createch owned the Dynamics NAV ERP installation, supported in troubleshooting ERP issues and bugs, and demonstrated a high level of commitment to the success of the project: often turning around a fix within 24 hours.

Why complete business transformation, and not just an adjustment?

For Pepco, challenging periods are viewed as times that present an opportunity rather than an intimidating threat. For this reason, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, simply making an adjustment to their typical way of doing business wasn’t good enough. They wanted to aim higher and find a way to do their part to help during a public health crisis. Of the approach, Pepin says:

“Business transformation and taking risks is in our DNA. Historically, in the face of disruptors or potential downturns, we choose to make investments to get ourselves ahead of the pack: not just to survive a difficult time, but to come out stronger and a step ahead of the competition.”

He explains his outlook on the outcome of the project as follows:

We wanted to implement an online store for our customers. When we decided to pivot toward products that were in high demand, like hand sanitizer, we realized we’d be seeing a larger number of orders, so we took the opportunity to finally make the investment in e-commerce. The high demand became a catalyst for the project, but now, we want to migrate all our products to the online store, not just a select number of SKUs.

Luc Pepin | CEO of Pepco

The results

Streamlined processes and a more agile business

The success of the new Pepco web store launch depended heavily on all involved teams’ ability to: achieve a quick and on-schedule go live / fast time-to-market, improve overall efficiency of their business, and demonstrate strong collaboration, professionalism and problem-solving skills across teams.

With Sana, Pepco was able to achieve the goals they set out to tackle. The Pepco team is happy with the work completed by the project team, as well as the quality of communication and collaboration throughout.

Over the course of the project, the Pepco, Sana and Createch teams were functioning as one, cohesive unit, rather than three separate-but-collaborating teams. Plus, not only were Pepco’s expectations met, but often, the Sana and Createch teams exceeded them: frequently going beyond the call of duty to make themselves available outside of business hours in order to keep the project on track.

The strong customer-centric focus that we saw from both Sana Commerce and ERP partner, Createch, was impressive. Both teams were able to adjust to customer requirements (and any necessary changes) throughout the project and to work within a tight timeline. When it comes to reliability, communication, and expertise, both teams put their best effort forth and did so flawlessly.

Luc Pepin | CEO of Pepco