We can now make decisions proactively rather than regretting that we have lost business. It has become easier to manage market expectations in terms of value, and service. Integrating Zoho Commerce with Zoho Books has helped Caple streamline business processes and operations. "
- Satyan Thukral ,
CEO, Caple
The company
Caple Industrial Solutions is a machine tool business based out of India. Founded in 1974, Caple runs its operations from multiple centers in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Pune while also maintaining a retail outlet in Mumbai. Their product and service range includes software, power tools, classical machines, automatic machines, and industrial machines.
The challenge
As a retail outlet, during their first 40 years, Caple's existing systems were not sufficient to simplify their day-to-day operations.
"We maintained manual cost books back then. When a customer walked in, we would give them a certain price. If the same customer enquired after a few days, our price could have changed and we didn't know what price we had quoted them previously. Besides that, the ease of doing business was not great during those times. It was more of a seller-oriented business than a buyer-oriented business," says Satyan Thukral, CEO, Caple.
At the onset of its business, Caple had its ups and downs and there were times when it couldn't meet its objectives. "We used Tally for our accounting needs. Around 2014, we decided to branch out into more professional sales with European machines. At that time, we were looking for an ERP other than Tally," Thukral says.
The company was on the lookout for a new software eventually decided on SAP HANA, which they used for five years. They soon realized there were some modules that were missing in the software. "To complement SAP, we had to add other software. But integration was becoming a challenge. It was not coming together."
With many roadblocks ahead, Caple looked for an ideal platform to meet its unique business needs. "Even when we were using SAP, Zoho was always on our mind. We were watching Zoho very closely to see how it was evolving and whether it could satisfy the modules that were missing in SAP," Thukral says.
The solution
The positive feedback about Zoho made Caple take action.
"We began inquiring about Zoho with our implementation partners and they assured us that Zoho would be a good application. They even gave us a demo. We had a few queries because we wanted to integrate all the modules that were important to us. We got more and more excited that this would solve our problem, but we had spent so much on SAP already. Now, we—again—had to do the implementation after moving to Zoho. But when we did our math, it was proven to be much cheaper to re-implement and switch over to Zoho than continue on SAP."
- Satyan Thukral, CEO, Caple
The switchover to Zoho provided Caple with an incredibly seamless experience. "With Zoho Commerce, we could have thousands and thousands of products uploaded in 15 days. In just 15 days, our website was up because we actually didn't have to do anything—everything was already done on the backend and was very strong," Thukral explains.
The benefits
There were two immediate benefits that were visible after making the switch to Zoho. The first was noticed when Santosh B. Puranik, Head of IT and Marketing for Caple, realized that a huge list of products had to be launched on the new website. "This was not possible on our Wordpress website because it involved double the work since we uploaded things separately on ERP and the website," Puranik said. The second benefit was a substantial increase in Caple's flow of enquiry following the implementation of Zoho Commerce.
As Caple continued to use Zoho Commerce, Puranik saw that it wasn't as complicated to use as he feared. In fact, he quickly saw that it was the ideal platform for their business.
"The best thing about Zoho Commerce is that it is a cloud-based system. It is easily accessible. There is less downtime and it's very user-friendly. Customer visits also went up when we moved to Zoho Commerce.
- Santosh B. Puranik, Head of IT and Marketing
From designing their online store to handling store functions such as payment options and shipping, Zoho Commerce helped Caple cover all aspects of their business. "Data not only seamlessly flows from Books and Inventory to Commerce but it is also accurate. I don't have to worry if the prices shown on the Commerce website are different from the price list because, if we are updating our price list, it is updated on Commerce in real time," explains Thukral.
Ease of use is another advantage that made things easier for Caple. "To update Zoho Commerce, you don't need a technical resource. Had it been a Wordpress website or a website on any other platform, you would need a dedicated agency or resource with coding knowledge. In Zoho Commerce, that aspect has been taken care of. Even if I want to make changes, I can do them myself," Thukral notes.
This has also changed the way the company functions and how its leaders make decisions. "We can make decisions proactively rather than regretting that we have lost business," Thukral began. "It has become easier to manage market expectations in terms of value, and service. Integrating Zoho Commerce with Zoho Books has helped Caple streamline business processes and operations."
When asked about the importance of one Zoho product over another, Thukral highlights the importance of integration. "The data flows seamlessly between Books and Commerce so I believe Books is the backbone of a company while Commerce would be the face of a company. Both are important."
To learn more about Caple, visit https://www.caple.in