Experts in organic products for over 30 years, Nathalie and Jean-Marc Lachat created So.bio https://www.sobio.fr/ in 2005 as a response to an exploding phenomenon and their idea of making organic products more attractive and available to all consumers. They have been successful enough to expand to over 12 stores throughout France, and in 2019 they were purchased by the multinational conglomerate Carrefour. They remain autonomous in operations; however, they were forced to adapt their tools to keep abreast of the growing numbers of competitors and with the challenge and ambition of being a major player in this specialized and growing segment.
Why did you choose to work with CMV Informatics?
To take ownership and build a successful pricing policy, I needed suitable software. I used to work on Excel, and it became quite a time consuming and complicated undertaking. The file sizes were too heavy, it was easy to make mistakes, and we couldn't cross-reference critical data.
I simply searched on the internet and contacted a few companies that looked interesting. I liked the contact I had with CMV Informatics because they were responsive, friendly, and efficient in their approach. I quickly had a remote demonstration, allowing me to see how the tool works and it's potential. It was the human contact, coupled with an excellent solution that made me choose CMV Informatics.
What were your initial needs before working with CMV Informatics?
I just couldn’t manage all the stores, in different cities and different competitors, only on an Excel spreadsheet.
How has CMV Informatics' Cabexpert Pricing tool impacted your organization’s pricing policy?
It's too soon to answer this question definitively, but the structure of our pricing policy has evolved immediately away from all the complications we faced to implement and monitor.
I’ve seen the tool immediately save us time, improve the quality of the data, improve the data visualization, and help us make faster and more educated decisions.
How did the internal implementation of the tool go?
To meet my planning time constraints, CMV offered me a “sandbox” version of the system, which allowed me to process my pricing without using Excel and meet my deadlines. It's nice to have a company that adapts to customer's constraints and does everything to support them in critical times.
The tool is user-friendly but still requires some learning to master its many features. CMV Informatics' team has been very reactive to answer my questions anytime I needed help. We can feel that they want to share their knowledge and all the possibilities offered by the software.
Could you name three differentiating qualities of the CMV Informatics' solution?
I would say it’s super user-friendly software, reliable, with a lot of possibilities we still need to explore.
If you should summarize your experience with CMV Informatics and the Cabexpert Pricing tool in one sentence, what would you say?
It's been a beautiful partnership, both at the human and solution level. I found what I was looking for, a tool that suits our needs. A special thanks to their partnering approach, it's not just about selling a piece of software I feel and appreciate that they really care about our success.