Sorelle Ramonda is a chain of clothing shops founded in 1954 in the Vicenza area in Italy. It offers a wide selection of clothing, footwear, accessories, home furnishings, textiles and toys. Sorelle Ramonda shops combine fashion, quality and convenience to offer customers a complete shopping experience. They are distinguished by the wide choice of brands on offer, with a focus on product quality and fit. Currently, Sorelle Ramonda has over 50 physical stores and an e-commerce presence. The stores vary in size from a minimum of 3,000 square meters to a maximum of 10,000 square meters. The largest is located in Montecchio Maggiore (Vicenza), Italy, which serves as the group's headquarters. Most of the shops are located in northern Italy, with one branch in Rome and three in Austria.
The company has always stood out for its entrepreneurial spirit and passion, combined with the visionary intuition of a family of retail pioneers who have always been dedicated to innovation. For this reason, the focus on management infrastructure has always been high, so that its employees can operate with maximum reliability, security and user-friendliness with high-performance technologies and solutions.
With a strongly distributed structure, interaction within the group plays a particularly important role. Each of Sorelle Ramonda's shops has its own warehouse for storing goods, but communication between the various locations and the administrative office, located at the headquarters in Vicenza, was often slowed down with negative impacts on operations. It was necessary to optimise collaboration and document sharing, to streamline processes and speed up activities.
While this was already the case when most of the documents to be processed were paper based, the introduction of electronic invoicing in 2019 has given new impetus to the company's technological renewal process, making the importance and benefits of correct and fast data and information management even more evident.
The company adopted a comprehensive system for digitising all paper documents generated in its offices and points of sale. The first step was to digitise the delivery notes of all stores in order to simplify communication with the administrative department responsible for management.
After careful analysis and testing of different solutions available on the market, with the invaluable support of a technology partner, Sorelle Ramonda decided to rely on PFU, and specifically on the N7100E scanner, which protects stand-alone network operations and improves business processes thanks to secure Ethernet connectivity and an extra-large touchscreen for customisable jobs.
After a pilot test at the company's Vicenza headquarters, during which employees were invited to digitise bills, the company saw the significant benefits of digitising documents easily, quickly and error-free. Considering the direct impact on workflow and payment efficiency, the company decided to extend digitisation to commission copies as well. Currently, this technology is available at 42 locations, enabling invoice clerks and payment processors to quickly and intuitively view all process-related documents, ranging from the order to the delivery of goods or returns to suppliers.
However, the information to be digitised not only included what was on the bills of lading, but also on the commercial agreements with suppliers. For smaller companies in the retail world, it is still common practice to create a commission copy, with specific policies and discounts added by hand on a paper document during the negotiation phase between supplier and Sorelle Ramonda. This led to obvious difficulties in finding the exact information and being able to apply the correct discounts agreed upon. Before adopting Ricoh scanners, this retrieval process could take up to several hours.
Each document is accompanied by a QR code, which is read by the scanner to automatically save the scanned information in the corresponding folder. This automated process not only reduces errors, but also allows the document to be integrated with the company's internal software system, ensuring a synergetic link between the scanned digital data and internal functionality.
"The entire digitisation of our operations has involved all departments, including sales and administration, with immediate benefits for the entire company," said Giuseppe Ramonda, CEO of Sorelle Ramonda. "We can definitely say that the investment will pay for itself in a short time, as it has guaranteed us a significant increase in workflow efficiency, both at the commercial and administrative level, and significant time savings."
"The decision to collaborate with PFU was driven by their reliable and quality scanners, which have proven to be excellent in scanning documents of all types and formats," commented Paolo Ziggiotti, IT manager of Sorelle Ramonda. "An additional advantage is the possibility to install the devices directly at the headquarters, avoiding physical trips to the shops. Simply define the settings and send the device to the shop for a seamless connection and start-up," added the IT technology department.
"The decision to collaborate with PFU was driven by their reliable and quality scanners, which have proven to be excellent in scanning documents of all types and formats,"
Paolo Ziggiotti
IT manager of Sorelle Ramonda
