How Bluestar PLM embedded with Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations keeps Schréder leading the outdoor lighting market

Putting the world to light

When Jules Schréder founded his company in 1907, he could never have imagined a future so bright for his family-owned business. Today, Schréder is a world leader in outdoor lighting, active in 70 countries. They produce two million luminaires per year.

The key to Schréder’s success? A relentless focus on designing the most aesthetically pleasing, intelligent, sustainable and innovative public lighting solutions. The company is also deeply committed to providing outstanding customer experiences – from initial quote and design to after-sales support.

Mastering complexity

While Schréder’s business is expanding, both geographically and in its markets, the company needs to continually raise the bar, says Jean-Jacques van Gils, Group IT Director: “Competition is fierce in today’s global market and customers demand unique products delivered quickly at competitive prices, plus superior services. So, we have to keep innovating and optimizing our customer services to retain our edge."

One of the ways for Schréder to add value for its customers is customization: they configure and assemble products to meet every client’s exact specifications. With a portfolio of 300 products, each with a million standard variants, its catalog includes 300 million SKUs – quite an impressive stack to manage. Though this configure-to-order manufacturing sets Schréder apart, it adds complexity to the value chain.

Digital transformation

To improve flexibility, agility and customer services and, as such, drive growth, Schréder kicked off a fully-fledged digital transformation. The plan included replacing the existing ERP platforms by one, single, cloud-based IT landscape. “Schréder was running 12 disparate legacy ERP and CRM systems,” Jean-Jacques explains. “That set-up is inefficient and error-prone. It obstructs our view of transactions and hinders collaboration. If we wanted to become a data-driven organization and streamline our processes across our entities, we had to consolidate our enterprise architecture.”