Maakindustrie

Suys is getting more out of its data thanks to a digital roadmap and Fabric Kickstart

At Suys, a family-run business headquartered in Kruisem, they realise that keeping up with new technologies is essential. Using a digital roadmap as a basis, and a Fabric Kickstart as a concrete step forward, Suys’ IT team has managed to consolidate business data from various systems into new, insightful reports.

Room for growth in IT

Suys has been a household name in the world of roller shutters and sun protection for many years. From their headquarters in Nokere, they manufacture profiles and boxes for roller shutters, roller doors and screens. “For the Belgian market, we go one step further: there, we also assemble finished products,” explains Femke Desmet, marketing manager at Suys. “Abroad, we mainly supply cut-to-length material to roller shutter manufacturers, with France and the United Kingdom as our largest markets.”

With three branches – in Belgium, the Czech Republic and Poland – and around 270 employees, Suys is an international player with a wealth of in-house expertise. But when it came to IT, there was room for improvement two years ago, explains IT Technician Jo Boermans. “We felt there was a lot that needed to be done, but we didn’t have a clear idea of where to start.”

A digital roadmap as a guide

To change this, Suys called on their regular IT partner, Savaco, to carry out a Digital Transformation Audit. “We wanted to set priorities and work in the right order,” explains Jo. “Major changes were on the horizon, such as a new ERP system, but also a new strategy for bringing our products to market. Finally, we also had some new people joining the IT team. That presented us with a few challenges: should we update our infrastructure first, or start with the applications? Thanks to the audit, we gained clarity on that.”

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Clear priorities and concrete projects

A detailed digital roadmap was drawn up in collaboration with Savaco. This set out, step by step, which changes should be implemented first and where the quick wins could be found. Suys then set to work on implementing the first subsequent steps. “First, we carried out an infrastructure upgrade. We soon added a few smaller projects to this, such as setting up an intranet, introducing multi-factor authentication to improve our security, and device management via Intune. We were able to count on Savaco’s support for each of these steps,” says Jo.

Insights from data: from quick wins to strategic advantage

Suys has also made significant progress in the area of reporting, enabling the company to gain a great deal of new insight whilst preparing for a new ERP system. “Our data was scattered across various systems, such as ERP and CPQ. Reconciling them wasn’t always straightforward,” explains Jo. “We wanted to gain more insights, for example into which screen fabrics sell well, which colours are popular, and so on…”

Savaco proposed a Fabric Kickstart: a quick, concrete step towards data-driven working. “During this kickstart, we set up a data warehouse together with Savaco and produced an initial report based on CPQ and ERP data,” Jo continues. “We plan to add other data sources to this later, but the report is already providing interesting insights. Now our sales team can see much more clearly what is selling well. That helps us spot trends faster and respond to them proactively.”

Suys’ management also recognises the added value. “All relevant figures are now consolidated in a single dashboard. That makes it much easier for them to make data-driven decisions.”

A professional approach and knowledge sharing.

Jo is pleased with the collaboration with Savaco. “What I really appreciate is how professionally everything is handled. The engineers who visit us document everything very thoroughly. Savaco is also always up to date with new solutions in the IT world, and we’re keen to keep up with that knowledge, for example through Savaco’s events and webinars.”

The plans for the future are already in place too. “We still use the digital roadmap we drew up together with Savaco as our guide today. We now know which quick wins we can tackle first, and what lies ahead in the longer term. For us, it’s not about technology for its own sake, but about how IT helps our business move forward.”

What insights does your data hold?

What would you discover if you combined the data from two of your business applications? With a Fabric Kickstart programme, our engineers will help you set up your data warehouse in Microsoft Fabric, and you’ll see the results straight away in an initial report.

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