Alolog Achieves Early Advantage by Automating Warehousing from Day 1

Alolog is a young and dynamic 3PL (Third-Party Logistics) company founded by Adeline Laurent and Olivier Barthe near Toulouse, France. They launched the company with the mission to help e-commerce businesses achieve their growth goals by streamlining and optimizing their logistics operations, allowing them to focus on their core competencies.

Adeline and Olivier, drawing on their extensive experience in the logistics field, quickly identified a lack of logistics solutions in the market for e-commerce businesses, regardless of their size. They wanted to provide the right solution to meet these businesses’ growing needs. Alolog was therefore founded to offer logistics solutions, but also to enable clients to focus on innovation, business development, and customer satisfaction, rather than solely on order preparation and package shipping.

However, as industry veterans, the duo knew their own business would also experience certain challenges. Understanding how logistics operations work, and the framework required to keep processes smooth and functional, they knew a robust and flexible logistics solution was essential. That said, they wanted it to power an automated warehouse to support their ambitious goals.

Challenges

Alolog required a robust, end-to-end logistics solution to support their business perfectly. Having experienced the challenges of running a 3PL business, they knew exactly where they needed SaaS support. The top areas of concern for them were:

1. Decentralized sales channel management

Managing multiple sales channels without a centralized system is complex and inefficient. Each e-commerce platform or marketplace used by Alolog’s clients had to be managed centrally for the 3PL company to smoothly perform order processing. Without this, they would experience fragmented workflows and potential errors. Fragmentation made it difficult to have a unified view of all incoming orders and inventory status across different sales platforms.

2. Slow order fulfillment

Slow order fulfillment was also a significant concern. Delays in processing and shipping orders could lead to dissatisfied customers and lost business opportunities. Inefficient and slow fulfillment are a result of manual efforts and limited visibility of orders received and inventory available. This made it essential to invest in automated warehouse capabilities.

3. Lack of order and inventory status tracking

Without real-time tracking of order and inventory statuses, Alolog would face difficulties in providing accurate updates to their clients and end customers. This lack of visibility could lead to overstocking, stockouts, and ultimately, poor customer experience due to delayed or missed deliveries.

4. Difficulty scaling

Alolog needed the flexibility to scale their operations without facing significant obstacles. Rapid growth meant that their logistics solutions needed to adapt quickly to increasing order volumes and expanding customer bases. But traditional logistics solutions often come with limitations that hinder scalability. Alolog planned to enhance their offerings over time with more 3PL services. This required their backend support to grow with them.

Implementation

Alolog needed a solution that could grow with them while maintaining high service quality. Anchanto’s SaaS technology was ideal as they offered solutions to all of Alolog’s operational concerns. Additionally, as Anchanto is associated with La Post, a trustworthy entity in France, Alolog was confident in its choice of technology partners. They launched their business with the fully operational:

Anchanto Order Management: Chosen for its order orchestration features, connectivity with online stores and marketplaces, unified real-time inventory management, and comprehensive order and shipping status updates.

Anchanto Warehouse Management: Selected for its end-to-end management capabilities of all warehouse logistics operations, including a TMS module for multi-carrier label printing and shipping rule management.

Solutions

Alolog faced several operational challenges typical for a growing 3PL. Anchanto’s comprehensive Order and Warehouse Management solutions played a pivotal role in addressing these issues, enabling Alolog to provide seamless, efficient, and scalable logistics services to their e-commerce clients. Here’s a closer look at how these solutions aided Alolog’s operations:

1. Centralized order and inventory orchestration

Implementing Anchanto Order Management and Warehouse Management, gave Alolog a centralized dashboard to manage their client’s orders and inventory across several sales channels. The orchestration features available through the OMS and WMS allowed for quick and error-free order and inventory consolidation and real-time updates, significantly reducing the complexity and manual effort otherwise required to manage multiple sales channels. This enabled the 3PL to easily grow their customer base and handle more orders and inventory with ease.

2. Fast and efficient order fulfillment

Alolog automated warehouse operations with smart stock locations via the Anchanto Warehouse Management system. This allowed them to set up their virtual warehouse on the WMS platform and in turn virtually identify products on their racks and shelves. With Anchanto Warehouse Management, Alolog also has the ability to create multi-carrier shipping labels, which enables them to meet all customer SLAs.

Automating the fulfilment process with Anchanto Order Management gave Alolog the ability to quickly pick, pack and dispatch inventory for orders. As a result, the 3PL can offer faster order fulfillment, often within 24 to 48 hours, greatly enhancing their service quality.

3. Real-time order and inventory tracking

Anchanto’s OMS and WMS technology provide Alolog with real-time tracking of orders and inventory status. This functionality ensures they can always provide up-to-date information to their clients, manage stock levels efficiently, and reduce the likelihood of overstocking or stock outs. Real-time visibility into order statuses also means that Alolog can quickly address any issues that arise, ensuring smooth and reliable operations.

4. Flexible support to scale

Alolog is currently experiencing rapid growth with new customers signing up every month. Since they started using Anchanto technology, they have onboarded 20+ customers and have been able to manage the increasing order volume and fulfilment complexities with ease. The SaaS systems they use continue to support their business with the necessary infrastructure to handle more clients and orders without compromising on efficiency or service quality. Additionally, it gives the team the support to save time and focus on other areas like their marketing strategy on social media, content creation, customer servicing, etc.

Conclusion

Alolog aims to establish their business as a recognized regional logistics company in Toulouse, and become known for their innovative and personalized logistics solutions. With the help of SaaS technology, the company is able to focus on solidifying their presence and reputation in their local market.

The partnership between Anchanto and Alolog has been instrumental in the latter’s rapid growth and success. With Anchanto’s comprehensive logistics solutions, Alolog can offer exceptional service to e-commerce businesses, allowing them to develop their core competencies.

To further enhance their service offering, Alolog plans to implement Anchanto’s new client portal (Anchanto Operation Experience). This B2B client portal, customized with Alolog’s branding, provides “self-service” features to their clients through a set of real-time dashboards and various functionalities. This will allow Alolog to continue expanding their customer base while reducing the time required for integration and support.