Streamlining business processes with Low-Code and Power Apps: the Galeries Lafayette Group's challenge

Designing a low-code approach

A clearly identified need lies at the heart of this project: streamlining business processes. After all, a wide range of products and services means a multiplicity of businesses, each with its own specific characteristics. "Our businesses have different ways of working and different concerns, which require different tools," explains Stéphane Zantain. However, for a structure like Galeries Lafayette, it is unthinkable to deal with these needs one by one, in an isolated way.

To overcome this problem, the technical teams decided to deploy a platform based on a low-code approach, enabling them to orchestrate and industrialize the design of group-wide business applications. “We wanted to get a platform that would be capable of automating, digitizing and robotizing processes that had previously been manual, and that were going to stay that way," says Thierry Schnelzauer, "all in a secure environment, with no risk of shadow IT.”

A transformation orchestrated by tools... and people

Three in-house teams were created: a team responsible for identifying the use cases to optimize, a team dedicated to the technological modeling of these use cases, and a team responsible for designing the applications to make them easier for employees to use. “We have developed a design system with standardized framework, methodology and uses,” Thierry Schnelzauer points out, “this operating mode enables us to clarify the various needs and to be truly efficient in our developments.”

Concerning technology, Microsoft solutions are the most popular. “Microsoft empowered us to automate processes with Power Automate, develop applications with Power Apps and do Business Intelligence with Power BI,” explains Stéphane Zantain.

enthuses Thierry Schnelzauer. What's more, Power Platform and Power Automate are intuitive and naturally mobile, and the company's catalog of services is anchored “in a global system that meets our needs and expectations,” adds Zantain.

Deploying a high-potential platform

The new platform has been operational for several months now and addresses several use cases with real added value. First of all, there's the digitization of the end-to-end alterations activity: “Our challenge here was to improve the entire process, on the one hand, and to ensure that we were able to re-invoice our suppliers for alterations, on the other,” explains Thierry Schnelzauer. The Bordeaux and Toulouse teams are now able to handle 1,200 automated alteration processes per month. This figure rises to 3,500 for the Haussmann store. As a result, customers have better visibility of the progress of their alterations, and the tailorscan devote themselves fully to their core business. "Some of our alteration tailors used to spend 80% of their time on administrative tasks rather than alterations. This is no longer the case.”

Secondly, the productivity of the purchasing functions was increased tenfold, thanks to the deployment of applications that are specific to the management of the company's promotional campaigns. "This strategic activity suffered from an obvious lack of tools and data centralization," confides Stéphane Zantain. From now on, most of the work is done with the help of bots, from collecting profit-sharing agreements from suppliers and partners, to automating direct mail, collecting signatures and archiving. “On a flagship operation like the 3J, for example, digitization saves the time-equivalent of 176 man-days.”

A long-term commitment to innovation

These first concrete examples have inspired most of the business sectors, giving rise to a myriad of new uses: "All the information circulating through the platform is traced, centralized and recorded in our databases. Thanks to this, we are able to identify relevant new applications as we go along," enthuses Thierry Schnelzauer.

In fact, the agenda for the coming months is already full. What's the plan? Simplifying interactions between sales and back-office functions, optimizing product relabeling, improving supplier relations, and providing mobile equipment to facilitate the management of HR requests - vacations, days off, etc. - for almost 6,000 in-store employees. "Ultimately, our aim is to develop enough applications to have an impact on the entire Group's productivity, whether at head office or in store," concludes Stéphane Zantain. At the same time, a project involving Microsoft Power BI and the democratization of data within the company is currently being studied, and should see the light of day shortly.