Sonepar Italia

Sonepar Italia, part of the Sonepar Group, has been a leading player in the B2B electrical material distribution market since its founding in 1988. The company has embarked on a significant supply chain transformation to align with the global standards of its parent company. Thanks to Slimstock, the Italian market leader has achieved tangible results: greater efficiency, leading to an improved customer experience.

With 170 branches across 17 regions, Sonepar Italia has adopted Slimstock’s advanced Supply Chain technology to optimise end-to-end operations and align with the global standards of the parent company. The distributor has significantly enhanced visibility and operational efficiency, strengthening its forecasting capabilities and reducing excess inventory levels.

Challenges

In the competitive landscape of electrical equipment distribution, Sonepar Italia recognised the opportunity to address challenges related to demand planning, assortment management, and replenishment. Improving the customer experience through greater product availability and ensuring reliable service has always been a top priority.

Stefano Romano, Head of Supply Chain Planning Center of Excellence at Sonepar, explains: “These proactive measures were aimed at significantly improving profitability, positioning our company for sustainable and successful growth in a competitive market. Our goal is simple: to ensure efficient inventory allocation to meet demand while minimising the risk of delays or shortages. Given the results achieved in other countries where the Sonepar Group operates, we adopted Slimstock’s Supply Chain Planning platform to enhance our performance.”

Results

Since implementing Slimstock’s advanced supply chain planning platform, Sonepar Italia has recorded significant improvements in performance:

• Greater supply chain agility.
• Improved operational efficiency.
• Stronger alignment with the Sonepar Group.

Optimised Operations

Leveraging advanced forecasting algorithms and exception management principles, the Slim4 platform has enabled Sonepar Italia to detect and address complexities and unexpected disruptions more effectively.

Matteo Fattore, Supply Chain Planning Manager at Sonepar Italia, reflects on the impact: “Today, we are much more agile. Slimstock’s platform has revolutionized our Supply Chain planning approach, allowing us to achieve greater forecast accuracy. With this renewed confidence in data, the Supply Chain Planning team is better equipped to prevent stockouts in our warehouses and ensure a more reliable service for our customers.”

A Model for Supply Chain Innovation

The collaboration with Slimstock has led to several significant improvements for Sonepar Italia. One key achievement has been enhanced cross-functional team collaboration. Additionally, by centralising planning at its logistics hub in Padua—which also supports operations for Elettroveneta, a company acquired in 2019—Sonepar Italia has unified the planning process to improve efficiency.

Furthermore, Sonepar Italia’s project has helped establish a model for supply chain transformation that other companies within the Sonepar Group can adopt.

Stefano Romano emphasises: “Leveraging Sonepar Italia’s best practices and technical setup, Sonepar Germany accelerated the adoption of Slimstock’s platform, going live in just 13 weeks. This has laid a solid foundation for overcoming inventory challenges across 13 distribution centers.”

Next Steps

Building on its initial success, Sonepar Italia and Slimstock will continue their partnership, collaborating on continuous improvement programs. To further enhance decision-making, the electrical materials distributor will work with Slimstock’s Supply Chain experts to increase the responsiveness of its supply chain even further.

Stefano Romano concludes: “Our collaboration with Slimstock has been transformative. We are confident that, with their continued support, we will achieve even greater milestones.”