Elly Yates-Roberts |
Service Industries Limited (SIL) has adopted Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management and Commerce to reach its growth goals. By migrating to the cloud, the Pakistani manufacturer now has better visibility into its retail stories and supply chains, and an infrastructure management system that supports the business’s rapid growth.
Established in 1953, SIL produces shoes, tyre tubes, technical rubber and armour, and, according to Microsoft, is the largest footwear and tyre tube manufacturer in Pakistan. The firm’s Shoebox brand – a chain of 65 fashion footwear and accessory stores – currently generates an annual revenue of $12.5 million, but it aims to have 400 outlets by 2025, generating $62.8 million.
To reach this goal, Shoebox needed to upgrade its existing on-premises infrastructure. “When we were budgeting for the year 2020, we realised that our expansion meant plenty of annual spending on servers and infrastructure,” said Faisal Rizvi, head of finance at Shoebox. “After an evaluation with our partner Confiz Limited, we decided to move to the cloud. We went ahead with a solution based on Dynamics 365 because it could cover the future we envisioned.”
The new cloud infrastructure has enabled Shoebox to plan for its future growth, speed up the set-up time – as team members do not need to be on-site for technical support – and see a new store’s data almost immediately.
“Previously, we spent a lot of time fetching, analysing and preparing the data,” said Rizvi. “Now that we’re using Dynamics 365 Finance, reporting is a lot quicker and more accurate. We can see the numbers in real time and take action immediately.”
Dynamics 365 has also improved Shoebox’s supply chain management. “Timely delivery of a product is essential in our line of business,” said Rizvi. “Yet, we used to have zero visibility on our inventory from the supply chain warehouse – whether they have sent it or not, where it is, whether it has been delivered to the shop. Now, thanks to Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, all this information is available to us from a simple report that tells us the status of each delivery at all times.”
With customer experience an essential factor in retail success, Rizvi has seen first-hand the value of the Dynamics 365 platform.
“With Dynamics 365 Commerce, the order process and order fulfilment from online platforms has become a lot smoother,” he said. “This improved customer satisfaction, and we can see our sales going up.”
With such success, SIL plans to continue using Microsoft technology in the future. Risvi said: “We’re looking to use Power Apps to automate our in-store sales and expense management processes.”