Matas to receive a digital vitamin boost

Every day, the Matas stores service more than 50,000 customers nationwide, selling everything from sun block to vitamins. Beneath the surface lies a sometimes red-hot supply chain that ensures items are ordered, delivered, and paid for.

As part of its strategy, Matas A/S has founded a vision to make the supply chain process fully digital. This will apply to the Matas group’s almost 300 stores and 20,000 item numbers from approx. 300 suppliers. In order to gain access to critical know-how and technology the drugstore chain has entered a deal with Evenex about a solution that will make all Matas suppliers go digital within the next 12 months.

”The purpose of this solution is to digitalize the thousands of manual and paper-based item catalogs, orders, order confirmations, shipping notes, and invoices that we exchange with our suppliers every day. This will make our core processes much more efficient, while reducing unnecessary processing time for our stores and suppliers alike,” says Anders Skole-Sørensen, CFO and sponsor of the project with Matas A/S.

Task outsourced

Matas A/S has decided to outsource this task in order to gain access to high capacity and professional expertise on how to make one’s suppliers go digital. However, the decision is based on making not just a few workflows, but all business documents, digital.

”Most vendors on the market are best at supplying solutions for electronic invoicing. But for Matas, invoices are only a piece of the puzzle. They need to digitalize all of their everyday communications with their suppliers. They chose Evenex as a strategic outsourcing partner, because we have strong solutions for suppliers and can deliver the full package,” says Michael Holm, Vice President for Nordic Sales, Evenex.

To Matas, the suppliers’ options are essential. The project would not be possible without their active participation. Both technological maturity and capacity varies among the supplier base. Consequently, the digital solutions needed by each supplier in order to realize Matas’s project differ quite radically. This means that in order for the project to be successful, a full range of supplier solutions are needed, ranging from simple to complex.

2011-06-29