Luceco
Business objective
Luceco needed to become more efficient and responsive to their customer’s invoice management and EDI demands. They were also looking to improve their document management processes.
Business benefits
Under B2BE’s comprehensive suite of solutions, Luceco has been able to proactively ensure their customers have received the invoices while responding quickly to customer EDI demands. Through B2BE Managed Customer Invoice Distribution, EDI, Print Management, Email and Facsimile Gateway, Luceco adopt a holistic approach that is catered to their internal and external business needs.
B2BE solutions
Luceco get their customer invoices paid on time with less payment collection effort
With over 70 years of experience in the manufacture and distribution of electrical accessories Luceco has gained an enviable reputation for quality, safety and performance. Under the umbrella of Luceco PLC, the company has gone through significant evolution to expand its product offerings and market presence.
Luceco has diversified its product categories beyond the traditional electrical accessories, now encompassing LED lighting, electric vehicle charging solutions, cable management systems, and outdoor mass lighting solutions. The current five core product categories are Luceco LED Lighting, Sync EV, D-Line, DW Windsor and Kingfisher Lighting.
Multiple warehouse sites and buildings are spread across the globe from UK to Mexico, Spain, United States, and Dubai. With a workforce of approximately 1500 staff, Luceco is well-positioned to serve a diverse customer base with their quality products and service excellence.
For more information, visit the Luceco website.
The challenge
Prior to implementing B2BE’s solution, Luceco faced challenges with using two separate EDI providers. This led to complexities in managing their system and increased costs. Additionally, significant time and resources from the IT team were spent to onboard new customers. This also resulted in reduced efficiency and costs.
For their customer invoice distribution process, Luceco needed a reliable way to ensure that customers received and processed their invoices before falling overdue. Invoices could go unnoticed, leading to delays in payments. The manual process of following up on each invoice was time-consuming and inefficient.
- The initial challenge was to provide Luceco with a robust platform where the Luceco IT team didn’t need to re-create document maps or change file formats, including adding new fields when onboarding a new customer;
- Secondly, Luceco wished to remove the day-to-day management of each roll-out so that they could focus on their core systems and business. Luceco only needed to be involved when testing is required for their core ERP system
- Luceco’s other challenge was to remove the two incumbent providers to streamline EDI (and other) processes through one flexible solution partner;
- The final challenge was to provide a reliable e-invoicing solution which ensures any outstanding invoices have been received by the customers.
- Luceco was also planning to shift from print and post to be more focused on email and facsimile to reduce operational costs.
- This challenge came about from the business consolidation that required a quick turnaround to distribute customer invoices
The solution
After consulting with Luceco to understand their current electronic and manual trading processes, B2BE tailored a solution specifically for Luceco’s Order to Cash environment with an emphasis on e-Invoicing. The recommended and adopted B2BE solutions included a combination of Managed Customer Invoice Distribution (covering EDI, Print Management, Email and Facsimile Gateways) as well as consolidating into one EDI provider. Together, these solutions enabled Luceco to efficiently manage their customer invoices electronically as well as responding to their customer’s EDI integration demands.
B2BE Managed Customer Invoice Distribution
B2BE’s Managed Customer Invoice Distribution provided significant benefits to Luceco when transitioning from post to digital invoicing. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Luceco encountered resistance from some customers who preferred printed invoices and attempted to charge for printing as well as labour costs.
With Managed Customer Invoice Distribution, Luceco saved time by eliminating the need to manually fold and send invoices. The solution ensured invoices were sent out quickly as well as allowed for tracking and tracing to confirm receipt. This increased efficiency freed up time to focus on more valuable tasks in a productive manner.
Additionally, Luceco experienced significant business growth, expanding to four times its original size. This rapid expansion increased the complexity of their operations, making efficient invoice management even more critical. B2BE ensured Luceco’s diverse customer base were covered with varying invoice delivery preferences—whether via email, EDI, e-invoicing, facsimile, or print and post. The self-service portal for customers also alleviated the burden of responding to copy invoice requests and allowed customers to download invoices as well as statements digitally.
B2BE EDI
The B2BE EDI integrated with Luceco’s systems to manage electronic documents in a proprietary format, including Customer Invoices, Purchase Orders, Dispatch Advice, MRS, and Remittance Advice. The file formats were designed to ensure little or no changes in the future. If Luceco’s system lacked customer-specific information, B2BE enriched the data. B2BE could then retrieve or supply files in the pre-defined formats and protocols preferred by Luceco’s customers. Some of the customers include Amazon, Rexel, Kingfisher Group, and Sainsbury’s.
The B2BE EDI also allowed Luceco to send invoices to B2BE for forwarding via email and facsimile. Luceco didn’t need to alter their invoice file format. Luceco simply output all customer invoices daily for B2BE to distribute.
Additionally, B2BE managed the roll-out which helped minimise Luceco’s involvement in migrating existing EDI connections. This helped them to save time and focus on other more important areas of their business. Over time, all customers using the incumbent providers were migrated to B2BE where new trading partners can now be onboarded quickly.
B2BE Print Management, Email and Facsimile Gateway
The print management solution enabled Luceco to consolidate business activities and ensure the continued transmission of hard copy invoices. Within a month, B2BE set up the necessary program to emulate the look and feel of Luceco’s invoices. Now, B2BE manages the distribution. This allows Luceco to capitalise on consolidation processes, reduce the number of articles, and control the timing of invoice distribution.
The final solution enabled Luceco to send customer invoices via email or facsimile. B2BE routed the documents based on file data which led to the reduction in hard copy invoices sent. This transition has led to a net reduction in hard copy distribution, thereby lowering document distribution costs
The result
Luceco saw massive improvements in efficiency. They were able to reduce operational costs after shifting to EDI, emails and facsimiles. This shift also led to quicker invoice distribution to customers as well as the ability to ensure their customers have actually received it. If not, they were able to proactively contact customers when the invoice was not been received or viewed.
“When moving from post to digital with B2BE’s solution, we saved time because we no longer had to fold all the posts manually. We could also easily make sure the invoices got to customers quickly,” said Mr. Richard Gardner, Group Head of IT at Luceco. “We could track and trace the invoices to make sure whether the customer received it or not. The benefit is mostly about efficiency that frees people up to do better things.”
The combination of Luceco’s forward thinking and B2BE’s comprehensive solutions has been a great success. Luceco is able to gain greater control and visibility over their invoicing process as well as reduce their overall administrative burden across the business.
