Infor®, the industry cloud company, announced today that Palais des Thés, a French house known for its exceptional teas, has selected Infor CloudSuite Distribution Enterprise, a cloud-based ERP platform with features, designed and developed for the food retail sector. At the same time, the retailer has chosen the Infor Factory Track module, a solution to automate and simplify warehouse and production processes that manages automation in factories and warehouses, from receiving raw materials, through processing and packaging, to shipping the finished ones products, and integrates inventory, resource planning and the associated working and attendance times.
This transformation project, launched in early 2022, aims to provide Palais des Thés with the management system needed to support its strong growth, while pushing it towards greater standardization and tackling the major challenges of warehouse and logistics management .
Laurent Chaumont, CIO at Palais des Thés, says: “Our old ERP, deployed in 2012, was no longer adapted to our new company size, while our goal is to reach €100 million in sales in 2026. Therefore, we wanted to update our system to a more modern and scalable solution that would allow us to move to integrated business functions using standard functions in the cloud.”
With 350 employees, 75 stores in France and 97 worldwide (50% franchise and 50% owned), an e-commerce site, a headquarters in Paris and a warehouse in the Paris region, Palais des Thés is constantly expanding to help tea lovers discover You extraordinary teas. Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world after water. The founder and owner of Palais des Thés defines himself as a tea seeker and travels the planet to discover the finest vintages. To this end, he has acquired an in-depth knowledge of the regions, terroirs and techniques, and developed a close relationship with the farmers and producers, while ensuring regular quality control of the way these crops are produced. He has also founded a tea school that offers reference courses in the mysteries of this ancient drink and the art of tasting it.
Chaumont explains, “We launched our bid in 2021 and consulted various publisher/integrator pairs among key players in the market on the functional suitability of Infor’s CloudSuite for our business expectations. In addition, the possibility of connecting this new ERP to a module dedicated exclusively to the logistics function, Infor Factory Track, has fully met our challenges in terms of managing deliveries, stocks and order preparation.”
The experience of the LTTD Consulting teams was also a key factor in the choice, given their expertise and ability to support the company in redesigning its processes to adapt them to a more industrialized and standardized approach, as proposed by the Infor solution becomes.
Ultimately, the solution should be linked to third-party solutions such as store management and e-commerce site, allowing the retailer to face more calmly the difficulties related to its multiple sales channels and the evolution of its activities.
The company currently sells more than 700 tons of tea in over 400 varieties worldwide through 70 stores, a large network of several hundred retailers, two subsidiaries in Russia and the United States, and its e-commerce website.
“Today we are finalizing the configuration and design of the interfaces, while the solution is scheduled to be deployed early next year. By then, around 20 key users, representing all the functions of the company, will take part in the organization of 70 workshops and will therefore report on any disruptions and adjustments to be made,” continues Chaumont.
“While the company weathered the pandemic crisis particularly well thanks to online sales, we want to support the Palais des Thés teams as closely as possible to their needs so that every employee can adopt the new system. In addition, we are supported by its management, which takes part in all steering meetings and has positioned itself as a sponsor and guarantor of the project’s success from the outset,” says Jean-Christophe Prickartz, project manager at LTTD Consulting.
Philippe Maillet, Infor SMB & Channel Sales Director in France, summarizes: “We are delighted to count among our customers a reference like Palais des Thés, a fine brand that respects the values of this new world and has been able to withstand the difficulties Deployed in a multi-tenant cloud environment hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS), our CloudSuite should enable their young and dynamic teams to focus on their core business and higher value-added tasks.
