10/10/2014 - IBM and Hardis Group sign worldwide agreement to transform the logistics chain in these times of connected customers

  

In order to support their clients' multichannel transformation, IBM and Hardis Group today announced the signing of an agreement to deploy, on an industrial scale, competitively and internationally, Hardis Group's Reflex warehouse management solution together with IBM's Sterling Order Management solution, allowing the orchestration of cross-channel sales and complex order processes.

Through this agreement, IBM becomes the worldwide reference integrator of the Reflex solution, allowing Hardis Group to deploy its software applications internationally and IBM to enhance its Smarter Commerce portfolio.

In these times of connected customers, the multichannel customer experience has become a real challenge for companies, which must be able to deliver the right product to consumers worldwide very quickly, regardless of which channel consumers choose - store, drive, smartphone or tablet. In this context, all distribution and logistics players have to adapt to customer's new expectations and rethink the logistics chain on a global basis.

Enabling Hardis Group to support its clients in their international development

Hardis Group is a European leader in the field of management and optimization of the supply chain, whose clients include some major names from France's retail and logistics sectors. Thanks to this agreement Hardis Group, a French company operating mainly in Europe will now be able to support its clients in their international development, by relying on the expertise of the worldwide IBM Services and Smarter Commerce teams, and attain its objective of doubling its international licensing revenues within three years.

The global IBM-Hardis agreement, a response to omnichannel and digital transformation

This agreement is based on IBM's making available resources and skills in terms of advice, integration services and application maintenance capabilities in more than 150 countries. Accordingly, a team dedicated to implementing and maintaining the Reflex solution has been set up at the IBM service center in Lille, and IBM consultants have received training on this software suite. They collaborate on projects with the IBM service teams in the target countries, in order to take account of specific local legal and tax factors.

Moreover, Hardis Group has chosen IBM's Sterling Order Management solution to complement its Reflex WMS in order to address its clients' problems with omnichannel. With a view to offering its supply chain solutions in service mode, Hardis will also offer to host them on IBM's worldwide Cloud platform Softlayer, which will soon be available through 40 datacenters around the world, in order to be able to offer an effective and secure infrastructure in proximity to its clients.

"Our company aims to become a leader in digital and omnichannel transformation of businesses and to double its licensing revenues from Reflex supply chain solutions in the next three years. With our strategic partner, we want to win over new clients and accelerate our development in Europe, in the BRICS and worldwide thanks to the expertise and the potential offered by sector giant IBM," declares Nicolas Odet, Deputy General Manager of Hardis Group.

From IBM's point of view, cooperation with Hardis Group enables it to round out its portfolio of business solutions around supply chain management (Sterling Commerce, Ilog, Tealeaf, etc.) and to provide better support to its clients throughout the sales process by integrating the Reflex supply chain solutions, in France and worldwide.

"This agreement with Hardis Group enables our clients to deliver on the promise of omnichannel, while at the same time addressing the challenges posed by digitization. We are very happy with this alliance with one of our long-standing partners, which strengthens IBM's lead position in this market," says Alain Bénichou, Chairman of IBM France.

An agreement that will create jobs in the Lille region

Apart from this, in the context of this agreement with Hardis Group based on the customer experience, new jobs will be created at IBM's Lille Service Center which opened one year ago, for the development of applications. IBM thus demonstrates its commitment to the French economic fabric and its involvement in helping a local partner to deploy internationally. Once again IBM shows its ability to support medium-sized companies in France and throughout the world.

About Hardis Group

Hardis Group carries on the dual business of digital services and software publishing. The company supports its clients end-to-end in the transformation and performance of their information systems and supply chains, as well as in their digital transition. Thanks to its long-standing dual positioning, Hardis Group has developed business expertise in the insurance and e-health sectors, in retail and FMCG distribution, manufacturing industry and energy and logistics services. This expertise enables it to offer its clients global responses to their needs, with an agile approach based on joint construction, innovation and continuous improvement.

Since its creation in 1984 the company has based its growth on a pragmatic approach and on values of efficiency and strong commitment, both with its 2,500 clients and with its 650 employees (25% of whom are shareholders). Hardis Group posted turnover figures of €57.2 million in 2013. The group, whose headquarters are in Grenoble, has four other agencies in Lyon, Paris, Lille and Nantes.

About IBM Smarter Commerce

In the framework of its Smarter Commerce initiative, IBM supplies software applications and services to help businesses transform their processes in order to respond faster to the new expectations of customers in the digital age. The initiative provides responses to customers seeking new means of automating and optimizing marketing, sales and delivery so as to ensure greater customer loyalty. The growth of mobile, social and online trading are the main trends driving Smarter Commerce.

You can find more information on Smarter Commerce at:
www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_commerce/overview/ 

 

Press Contacts for IBM:

• IBM
  Sandrine Durupt - Tel. 01 58 75 17 95 - sandrine-durupt@fr.ibm.com

• Text100 for IBM
  Sarah Amsellem - Tel. 01 (0)56 99 21 79 92 - sarah.amsellem@text100.fr

Press Contact for Hardis Group:

• Hardis Group
  Elodie Cassar - Tel. +339 65 24 97 58 - elodie.cassar@anjuna.fr