In conclusion, Ralf Boer briefly sums up the success factors of the project:
"What mattered most was the time we took for the implementation, including training, and the partnership-based collaboration with SHD on equal footing. You can tell that many SHD employees come from the furniture industry and know exactly what we are talking about. My son and I fully stand behind the new IT. This has also had a positive effect on our employees."
After 30 (!) years with the MHS merchandise management system, the Coesfeld furniture store Interliving Boer switched to SHD ECORO in 2019. A decisive and forward-looking step for the Interliving partner, which managing directors Ralf and Stefan Boer implemented thoughtfully and consistently together with SHD. The new SHD merchandise management bridge also contributed to the success of the project.
Our goal was a future-proof and modern system landscape that would let us map all furniture retail processes and automate them when needed.
Stefan Boer, Managing Director Interliving Boer
On October 19, 1966, Siegfried Boer, together with his wife Elfriede, laid the foundation for the family business Möbel Boer in the town center of Lette. Since 2000, the furniture store, now run by Siegfried Boer's son Ralf and grandson Stefan, has been located in Coesfeld on the B474 and employs around 70 people across more than 20,000 square meters. Today, the successful company is one of around 50 Interliving stores in the VME furnishing partner network.
After Ralf and Stefan Boer defined the requirements together with SHD, SHD developed a package of IT solutions precisely tailored to the furniture store's needs. SHD project manager Carsten Scheidt: "For a changeover like this, we follow a proven, standardized process that we tailor individually to each customer's needs in each case. For Interliving Boer, we provided two systems. First, an on-site server as a test system for the trial migration and to check the MHS data. The workshops with the users were also held on this system. In addition, the test system was parameterized and configured according to the customer's requirements as part of the workshops."
The second system was the live SHD ECORO system in the SHD data center, which was populated with data via the merchandise management bridge and ran in parallel with MHS. It was continuously supplied with real-time data from MHS, so SHD ECORO always had the same data status as MHS. This approach enables smart configuration of the live system right up to the planned go-live date.
September 9, 2019 was go-live day for SHD ECORO. "In theory, we could even have brought the changeover forward by several weeks, everything went so smoothly. My only concern was the server changeover. Had we overlooked something? Would the connection to the data center work once we switched off our own system? But in the end we did not notice anything there either, except that the hum of our servers suddenly went quiet," recalls Stefan Boer.
After MHS had served Interliving Boer well for 30 years, management decided in 2019 to acquire a new ERP system in order to optimally meet the current and future demands of the market.
Ralf and Stefan Boer had clearly defined their goal in advance: a future-proof and modern system landscape that could map all furniture retail processes and automate them when needed.
The solutions were also meant to be easy to learn and user-friendly. Another important point was the server landscape, which had also aged and needed to be renewed.
Before making their decision, the managing directors had critically examined the topic and thoroughly researched the industry solutions prevailing on the market. "Of course, we also took a close look at SHD ECORO, gathered information from colleagues in our association, and spent a whole day at a colleague's business to put the software through its paces. In the end, we were convinced that SHD ECORO could best meet our requirements," explains Ralf Boer.
An ERP changeover during ongoing operations is often compared to open-heart surgery. Not so with the switch from MHS to SHD ECORO. This is where SHD's new merchandise management bridge was used for the first time. It automates the data migration from MHS to SHD ECORO. In coordination with Interliving Boer, SHD transferred the data of the past five years, a six-figure number of article records, from MHS to SHD ECORO. To ensure a smooth data migration, faulty data in MHS was identified beforehand using a quality report, then cleaned up or corrected.
"The merchandise management bridge has more than proven itself and delivered truly outstanding service." Carsten Scheidt, SHD project manager. Alongside SHD ECORO, Perfacto Accounting, SHD ECORO CRM, SHD ECORO Kasse, and SHD ECORO Portal were also introduced. "We proceeded step by step: we had already introduced SHD ECORO Kasse beforehand and connected it to MHS. SHD Portal and SHD ECORO CRM were integrated in November 2019. For the servers, we opted to outsource them to the SHD data center," says Ralf Boer.
Our approach contributed to broad acceptance of the new software. Our employees are 100 percent behind the solution!
Ralf Boer, Managing Director Interliving Boer
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