Infor, a leading industry cloud company, has announced today its collaboration with Vital Concept, a pioneering French company specializing in distance selling to professionals in the agriculture, equine, and landscaping sectors. Vital Concept has selected Infor Cloudsuite Distribution Enterprise to underpin its global expansion strategy.
The integration of Infor’s ERP solution marks a significant milestone in Vital Concept’s ongoing project to overhaul its information systems. This transformation will empower the company to leverage the numerous benefits of a solution meticulously crafted to meet the precise and agile demands of professionals engaged in distance selling.
Established in 1966, Vital Concept, headquartered in Loudeac in central Brittany, is a family-run business that caters to farmers, equine professionals, and landscaping and green space experts. With an impressive roster of 48,000 active customers and a dedicated team of 240 employees, Vital Concept embarked on an international growth strategy in 2016, initially expanding into Belgium and subsequently entering the Dutch market in 2021.
The company’s growth story has been underpinned by an omnichannel sales strategy featuring a customer relations center staffed by 35 sales advisors, a robust e-commerce platform, and two physical stores. Complementing this is a vast logistics infrastructure, encompassing a 17,000-square-meter storage facility and an additional 7,500-square-meter external storage space where 99 percent of the company’s 15,000 product references are housed. Vital Concept also manages its own delivery service, complete with a fleet of 50 trucks.
The journey began in September 2020 when Vital Concept engaged Infor, in partnership with Hetic3, to revamp its existing information system. Given the rapid growth of Vital Concept’s commercial activities, it became evident that the legacy infrastructure was ill-equipped to handle the burgeoning demands. The heterogeneous technological environment relied on a multitude of solutions, necessitating an unwieldy number of interfaces and ultimately impeding the company’s ability to adapt to its ever-evolving business processes.
Pascale Auffret, CEO of Vital Concept, emphasized the critical need for a software solution with robust functionality, both for current operations and future scalability. Auffret noted that Infor’s cloud platform emerged as the ideal choice, seamlessly covering essential areas such as finance, sales management, marketing, and procurement – all central to Vital Concept’s operations. Additionally, Infor’s solution facilitated the integration of crucial multi-warehouse, multi-lingual, and multi-currency parameters, vital for international expansion.
The project, initiated in December 2021, saw the selection of Infor Cloudsuite Distribution Enterprise and integration partner Hetic3. Implementation commenced in May 2023 in France and Belgium, with plans to extend to The Netherlands in early 2025.
Auffret further explained the decision, stating, “We chose the Infor Cloudsuite Distribution Enterprise solution not only for its budget-friendliness but also for its superior functional coverage in areas such as marketing, procurement, finance, and commerce. Features like electronic document management, workflow capabilities, customization options, and full-text search capabilities were additional factors that influenced our choice.”
Ara Pachabezian, co-director at Hetic 3, emphasized their expertise in handling high-value technology projects and their ability to streamline complex industrial environments. He highlighted the collaborative and relationship-driven approach that played a pivotal role in the project’s success.
For Infor, this partnership underscores the continued relevance and innovation of its distribution solution. Jean-Lucien Meunier, Infor’s SVP for France, expressed satisfaction in supporting Vital Concept’s global aspirations. He underscored Infor’s commitment to anticipating tomorrow’s challenges through agile solutions that adapt to the most unpredictable contexts, ensuring the seamless transformation of businesses.
Infor, along with its esteemed partners Hetic3 and AWS, looks forward to fostering Vital Concept’s international growth journey, providing comprehensive support for the company’s dynamic expansion plans.
