A new generation of tools to increase efficiency while maintaining the local business culture

[PARTNER CONTENT] The trades in the fresh and ultra-fresh food sector have unique specificities concerning working methods and hours, the speed of transactions, quality and traceability... A French family business No. 1 in the IT (ERP) specializing in this sector continues to develop thanks to its young Chief Operating Officer Baptiste Bellon, who does everything possible to establish 2Bsystem's leadership on the largest food market in the world, the MIN, as well as with major food groups. French.

Let's first go back to the history of this family business created by your father. Why pick up the thread of the story?

The Bellon family since the beginning of the 90s has been a leader for more than 20 years in agro-food IT. In the 2000s, the group was the subject of a takeover bid by a non-specialized English firm. Today, we are a family group, which makes all the difference because the sector needs a "tailor-made" rather than a "ready-to-wear" ERP.

Thanks to the reconquest of many customers, external growth and a partnership of trust with the networks, 2Bsystem has regained its place as a dominant player on the largest food market in the world, the Rungis MIN (National Interest Market) and continues its development throughout the territory with the effective opening of 2 branches.

What are the issues and challenges in the IT sector for the food industry?

Each profession is complex and has its specific prerogatives that cannot be found elsewhere. Our fresh and ultra-fresh customers work day and night, they must quickly transmit information, manage the use-by date (Best Before Date), quality and traceability, manage orders, deliveries, etc.

Our challenge is to know the uses of the profession to propose a global solution.

Our ERP software developed by 2Bsystem makes it possible to manage the many daily flows of a company in this sector (purchase, inventory, sale, accounting, CRM, etc.). We provide our solutions to the entire French agri-food sector and more specifically the Fruit and Vegetable, Meat Products and Seafood sectors.

How did you develop the family business?

When we took over the company a year ago, we conducted a market study and we brought innovations in terms of digitization of key positions in this sector (production and administrative) and dematerialization of documents.

According to our study, the food industry had not yet taken the digital turn and continued to operate with flying delivery slips, lost invoices and even slips on carbon paper!

We launched about 10 applications to automate the management of our customers' customers. For example, we have created customer spaces offering the possibility of making payment remotely, of being able to retrieve invoices, create statistics, order... a workspace that saves fluidity and time for our customers, their customers. and their accountants. Because 80% of the time is used for repetitive administrative tasks without added value.

How to move to digitalization in field jobs with a very strong human culture?

It is a question of offering a global solution taking into account the specificities of each profession and of being the single interlocutor for IT and provider of solutions for their network, software, hardware, financing and training.

Our customers receive orders at night, they are very grateful to now have a stand-alone tool on tablet or computer to enter these orders into their ERP where they want, when they want.

Our customers also have touch tablets as a buyer, this allows them to have all the negotiation elements available (last purchase, price, volume, etc.), to stay in touch with the drivers equipped with GPS for delivery, etc. it is estimated that 2 hours of time saved per day thanks to these new tools.

What is the key success factor as an ESN player in the food industry? In this sector, customer proximity is essential, they don't know how to work from home!

Any supplier must be present and close, we take care to create regular contacts because these are long-term collaborations (20 to 30 years)

We are also located close to our customers in Rungis because in this business, contact is essential.

What are the trends with your customers?

There are many groupings of family businesses that have well-established work habits. We must adopt our methods in a subtle way according to the generations, configure our tools according to the habits of each one. These family companies bought by groups, often 15 to 20 companies representing more than 600 people, are looking for a single specialized contact to control flows. This gives more power to our solutions which are always up to date with government news such as the EGalim law (Agriculture and Food law) or Chorus pro (Ordinance relating to the development of electronic invoicing).

What is the news of 2Bsystem?

As No. 1, we have chosen external growth. We have just acquired on Friday, September 24, a competing company based in Paris and Marseille. As a result, our teams are getting stronger, our field of action increases and our client portfolio doubles. We are in the recruitment phase, which will bring our team to more than 45 people.

This content was produced with SCRIBEO. The BFMBUSINESS editorial staff did not participate in the production of this content.