Rexel
Wholesale electrical distributor brings sustainable solutions to more customers with B2B managed services from OpenText™ B2B Integration Enterprise
About Rexel
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Employees:27,000
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Branches:1,900
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Annual revenues:~€19.2 billion
Summary
Challenges
- Drive business growth by offering frictionless online buying experiences.
- Boost average order value by empowering customers to purchase products from international Rexel businesses in a single order.
Solution
- Standardized on a single B2B integration platform.
- Processed more than 5.2 million supply chain messages a year.
- Enabled omnichannel, multilocal customer experiences.
Results
Reduced delivery times for customers
Ensured high availability for B2B communications
Offered scalability for future business growth
Challenges
- Siloed, aging ERP systems reduced the efficiency of international fulfillment
- Manual data-entry tasks lengthened lead times for customer deliveries
According to the International Energy Agency, global use of electricity will double by 2050—and the move towards net zero is a key factor behind this trend. With thousands of branches around the world, Rexel strives to connect residential, commercial, and industrial customers with sustainable electrical products and solutions to accelerate the energy transition.
Eric Laterrade, Group CIO at Rexel, said, “Whether it’s for renovation, construction, maintenance or energy production, our goal is to provide the highest-quality products and services. And with our PowerUP 2025 strategic roadmap, we want to take a leading position in the energy transition solutions and services market.”
Rexel identified the digital channel as a powerful opportunity to drive sales. As part of the PowerUP 2025 plan, the company aimed to offer online customers a frictionless buying experience with same-day delivery. A key component of the strategy was multilocal commerce: the ability to seamlessly fulfill online orders using inventory from international Rexel businesses.
As a result of years of organic and acquisitive growth, Rexel has multiple ERP solutions in use across its international business—and in the past, integration between these systems was limited. Customers therefore had to raise separate purchase orders for each of the Rexel businesses they wished to purchase from, requiring time-consuming manual work on both sides.
To realize its vision for omnichannel, multilocal customer experiences, Rexel looked for a way to integrate and streamline its approach to order management and fulfillment. Thierry Bagland, head of supply chain at Rexel, commented, “Digitizing the exchange of B2B data is a major focus for our business. As well as eliminating the need to manually re-enter data, we knew digitization would allow us to improve data quality and even reduce lead times for customer deliveries.”
The OpenText platform is extremely reliable, and we’ve never had a technical issue that impacted our business. OpenText is a true, trusted partner to our business.
Solution
With B2B managed services from OpenText B2B Integration Enterprise, Rexel can exchange key documents with customers and suppliers faster and more easily—including purchase orders (POs), advance ship notices (ASNs) and more.
Products deployed
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OpenText™ B2B Integration Enterprise
Leverage B2B managed services to easily meet integration requirements
Standardizing on a single B2B integration platform
Rexel was searching for a solution that would allow it to maintain the local technologies and standards in use across its international business units while making the underlying complexity of these systems transparent to its trading partners. In OpenText B2B Integration Enterprise, the company found everything it was looking for.
“Our partnership with OpenText began more than a decade ago,” said Laterrade. “OpenText B2B Integration Enterprise enables us to seamlessly integrate with the multiple ERP systems in use across the business and deliver a unified service window for our customers and suppliers.”
Processing more than 5.2 million supply chain messages a year
To date, Rexel has leveraged managed services from OpenText to streamline B2B integration across its five largest business units: France, Canada, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Each year, the company uses OpenText B2B Integration Enterprise to process more than 5.2 million supply chain messages efficiently and reliably.
“At the group level, we worked closely with each country to support their digital transformation,” commented Laterrade. “As part of this process, we helped our business units to fine-tune the new B2B integration workflows and collaborate with suppliers and customers during the transition. The OpenText solution has been a huge success, and our partnership with OpenText is a perfect fit for our digital transformation initiative.”
Enabling omnichannel, multilocal customer experiences
With omnichannel, multilocal customer experiences powered by B2B managed services from OpenText, Rexel can stay at the forefront of the global energy transition.
“In France, we work with 150 suppliers using EDI, exchanging everything from invoices, order acknowledgments and delivery notes,” commented Bagland. “Around 90% of our B2B data exchanges now happen via the OpenText platform, which translates to increased efficiency and accuracy for our logistics and fulfillment processes.”
With managed B2B services from OpenText, our goal is to drive 50% of our revenues through the digital channel.
Results
Today, Rexel uses B2B integration services from OpenText to exchange over five million documents a year across its global business rapidly and reliably—representing over €6 billion in annual revenue.
Reducing delivery times for customers
B2B integration services from OpenText are enabling Rexel to streamline processes that previously required laborious manual work.
“In Rexel France, we now exchange approximately three million invoices and credit notes via digital channels, which frees our teams to spend less time on data entry and more time on complex enquiries,” said Bagland. “OpenText B2B Integration Enterprise is also helping us in other areas. For example, we can now send packing lists alongside our delivery notes, which enables us to dispatch goods faster and cut delivery times for our customers.”
Ensuring high availability for B2B communications
Because B2B integration is a mission-critical capability, Rexel cannot afford unplanned downtime. With OpenText B2B Integration Enterprise, the company gains high availability for trading partner communications.
Lionel Brayard, CIO at Rexel France, confirmed, “We process all orders from our 50 largest customers via B2B Integration Enterprise, as well as all data exchanges with our logistics carriers. The OpenText platform is extremely reliable, and we’ve never had a technical issue that impacted our business. OpenText is a true, trusted partner to our business.”
Offering scalability for future business growth
Looking ahead, Rexel aims to drive business growth through the digital channel, and scalable B2B integration capabilities from OpenText will be a key enabler.
“We’ve believed for many years that digital technology will allow us to stand out in our market,” concluded Laterrade. “In the first quarter of this year, our digital channel was responsible for 31% of our revenues—over €6 billion. But this is just the beginning. With managed B2B services from OpenText, our goal is to drive 50% of our revenues through the digital channel.”
