GEPA - Fair Trade - Pioneer

GEPA has been a pioneer and trailblazer of fair trade since 1975, both for foodstuffs such as coffee, cocoa and tea, as well as handicraft products such as home accessories, primarily from Latin America, Africa and Asia. Political and voluntary commitment in world shops and action groups gave rise to a global movement. Today, fairly traded products are an integral part of the food retail trade and can of course also be ordered directly from the GEPA online shop.

 

GEPA has undergone a process of change and modernisation in recent years and is now taking the next step: into the cloud. "The transfer of our ERP system to the cloud is a logical development of the digital transformation GEPA has been undergoing since 2015. New opportunities and improved processes can now be used in the digital world," says Joachim Hubinger, Head of GEPA's IT and Organisation department.

Under the leadership of Dynamicon GmbH, the Dynamity Group is implementing the cloud-based ERP system Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management and Commerce in a successful collaboration with GEPA. As part of an upgrade from Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, all data, functionalities and processes were brought up to date, utilising current standard functions such as Landed Cost, Advanced Warehouse and OmniChannel order entry.
 

 

Several sub-projects were combined within the project, such as data migration, merchandise management, logistics, purchasing, EDI, sales, quality assurance, master data, financial accounting, D365CE and interfaces (e.g. ELO integration, Magento Commerce connection, the BOARD planning tool).

One of the key success factors here was the key users from the specialist departments: They determined and supported the internal departmental processes. On the other hand, the process supervisors from the IT and Organisation department played an important role with regard to cross-departmental process coordination and implementation.

 

Commercial Director Matthias Kroth is well aware that such a project not only involves opportunities, but also risks: "I am very glad that we had a strong project team internally, but also with the consultants from the Dynamity Group, so that we were able to introduce the system within ten months. Anyone who has worked on larger software projects knows that these have caused far greater problems elsewhere, including temporary shutdowns of entire companies." This makes expertise, diligence and commitment on both sides all the more important.