Redi Mart is a locally owned chain of 18 convenience stores and tobacco stores based in Northeast Tennessee, USA.
For many years, the company used Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 to manage their warehouse and retail operations, and Microsoft GP to manage the accounting. When Microsoft changed the solution’s pricing structure, Redi Mart decided to look for alternative solutions which also offered stronger retail functionality. “Our biggest challenge was to keep current with new technologies and large competitors that utilize technology for efficiency,” says Chris Rayment, Owner at Redi Mart.
The solution
The company had been happy users of Microsoft products for a long time, so selecting LS Central, which extends Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with retail functionality, was a natural choice. LS Central enables businesses like Redi Mart to manage financials, warehouse, and retail operations in just one platform. “We like the stability of Microsoft and LS Retail solutions,” says Rayment. “The retail features offered in LS Central are quite robust and extensive, allowing us to improve efficiencies and successfully compete in our industry.”
Being a data driven organization, Redi Mart also wanted a solution that would enable them to capture and visualize relevant metrics and KPIs from their retail operations to gain better insights and to improve processes. They found exactly what they were looking for in the add-on functionality Analytics for LS Central, which is also built on Microsoft technology. Analytics for LS Central consists of a data warehouse (SQL Server or Azure SQL), tools to import data from LS Central, and over 100 Power BI report templates, which can easily be modified or extended. The report templates cover various areas of retail businesses, such as sales, inventory, supply chain, and more.
Local LS Retail partner ArcherPoint took care of the deployment of the new ERP and POS system in the chain’s 18 stores. The implementation journey went smoothly, with only a few slowdowns with customizing the system and implementing non-standard features.
Benefits
Before they moved to LS Central, Redi Mart needed to maintain two master item tables and ensure they were synced properly between two systems. With LS Central, they only maintain one master item table that is used both for their wholesale and retail business. “Item information, costing and pricing are more accurate, and data analysis is easier. We don’t have to maintain multiple systems with duplicating data or worry about the integrations required across these platforms,” says Rayment.
LS Central also allows Redi Mart to manage their vendors more efficiently, enabling them to store vendor information, including contact details, pricing, and order history. “We import all of our vendor documents into LS Central, and get visibility for retrieval, investigation, payables whenever we need.”
With LS Central, Redi Mart has managed to automate many processes across their operations, reducing manual tasks and eliminating errors. “Our daily POS statements became a single consolidated statement that takes less than half the time to complete than our prior system,” says Rayment. “This gives the management more time to be in the store with the customers instead of in the back office.” The company also automated their manual invoice processes by integrating Continia Document Capture solution to LS Central. “Our accounting department is making tremendous progress in getting financial reports to stakeholders faster than our previous system.”
Analytics for LS Central has enabled Redi Mart to analyze metrics across all their retail stores. Redi Mart says they downloaded the product package for Analytics for LS Central and installed it in about an hour just by following the LS Retail online tutorial – no external help needed. says Rayment. “This tool has given us better insight into making data-informed business decisions.”
Redi Mart is using the replenishment module in LS Central, which enables retailers of various industries to automate and optimize supply chain and purchase processes, leading to cost reduction, optimized stock quantities and improved working capital. “Using the replenishment module immediately reduced our inventory levels, reduced stockouts and improved our in-stock metrics,” says Rayment.
Redi Mart is confident that LS Central will continue to be a valuable support and lead them into their next phase of growth.
