Interview with Nizar Sefiani

"Hello, can you introduce yourself and Calyans?

My name is Nizar Sefiani, and I'm the founder of Calyans, a consulting and digital services company specializing in the digitalization of warehouses and the distribution, implementation and support of warehouse management tools, commonly known as WMS. We are active in two areas: WMS expertise for key accounts, where we will be involved in all phases of the project. From the expression of need to post-start-up support on projects for major accounts.

Our second activity is a little more focused on SaaS and SMEs, where last June we became the leading integrator and distributor of Corax WMS solutions in France (a company based in the Netherlands).

In the next few days, we'll be adding a third innovation activity. You'll probably hear about it on our social networks. But for now, it's confidential!

Is this integrator business something you've developed recently?

We were more involved in expertise activities for key accounts, in the form of an agency. What's changing is that we're becoming a distributor. Before, we didn't sell warehouse management tools, we just provided expertise on the tools. Now, we distribute the tool, we implement it and we create the support. It's SaaS mode, and it's aimed at a target market that we didn't have before: small and medium-sized businesses.

Do you work regularly with the same key accounts, or does it vary?

We often work with the same people, as these are projects that last over time, mainly in the retail, logistics and industrial sectors.

We've been going through this crisis for just over a year now. What has it been like for you at Calyans? What has it been like for your customers? As a consulting firm, have you seen any major changes since then? Where do you stand today?

At the start of the pandemic, we were asking ourselves a lot of questions about our customers. In general, we work in the field of project management, where we are very much present on site at our customers' premises. So we had to review our way of working. We were waiting to see how our customers would react to this crisis. At first, we didn't really know, we waited, but very quickly there were arbitrations on the projects we were working on.

We were very lucky on this part of the project, as we were positioned in what we called "essential" activities, in digitalization, so we could do our work remotely. The whole team quickly switched to full remote and we continued to work for our customers. We were lucky that our projects with them - on that aspect of the supply chain which was at the heart of the pandemic - were not de-prioritized. There was a need for investment, unlike other projects with the same customers, which had to be stopped.

How did you manage to make such an impact by moving from on-site to remote operations? How did you deal with your customers?

When we work for our customers, for security reasons, we use VPNs. We use communication tools like Teams and Google Meet. We have access to remote tools, databases, things we're used to working on. However, at some point, when things calmed down a bit, we came back on site. What's really important in our business, where you have to be present, is really at the beginning to see what the needs are and to do exchange workshops etc. It's important to be physically present. It's essential when the tool is launched, when on-site support is needed to fully understand and visualize what's going on. In between, there are a number of stages, including parameterization, testing and training.

In the middle of a project, we tend to work remotely. During the pandemic, we were more involved in deployment phases, so we were able to do this remotely. And when we were deconfined, we were able to visit our customers two days a week.

How did you go about it with your employees? Has the full-remote culture been more widely implemented? How did you change your internal processes?

We had to do a lot of on-site work for our customers, and it was hard to get everyone together because we were all scattered over different sites, so it was already a bit complicated. Now we've switched to full remote, and that's a subject I'm very concerned about. We'd like to work on all aspects of recruitment and retaining skills within the team, in a penurious market which continues to be so despite the pandemic, and develop this way of working, even though we're now working remotely.

The idea would be to build a hybrid model based on an ideal week: two days at the customer's premises, two days in the office and one day teleworking. It's an optimum model where everyone wins. We lose people when we tell them they'll have to travel 80% of the time.

Have you noticed any changes in your customers' expectations? In the way they work?

I think they had to ask themselves whether it was going to work well, because they had to deal with telecommuting en masse, both in terms of their teams and their service providers, etc. I think we've found a good rhythm and everything's working very well. I think we've found a good rhythm and everything's working very well. I hope we'll be able to find a hybrid model, with remote control. I don't believe in full remote, or full on site, I think there's an in-between to be had.

You know the logistics sector, there has been a favorable effect on e-commerce. How do you feel about the industry at the moment, and particularly the logistics market, after this situation? How has it evolved since last year, and what do you see as the outlook for the next few years?

In the logistics market, there are high expectations in terms of flexibility and digitalization - whether in warehouses or in logistics circuits, which have had to be reorganized when one country is confined and another is not. We had to be highly responsive. It's important to have a flexible, digitalized system. Increasingly, supply chain expectations are going to focus more and more on this flexibility and the possibility of reviewing logistical schemes and digitization. Increasingly, to be able to use any logistics center, including stores transformed into warehouses, we need to adapt where we can store goods to be as close as possible to consumers.

Have you had any requests to set up Click and Collect?

We haven't had any directly, as the major accounts we work with are more B2B oriented, stores, concessions, etc. But we have seen an explosion in demand for e-commerce on this brand-new June activity on Corax WMS SAAS. But we have seen an explosion in e-commerce demand for this brand-new June activity on the Corax SAAS WMS.

Do you see a growing market of smaller companies managing their own logistics, or do they tend to use marketplaces instead?

They're using marketplaces more and more, existing things, platforms, prestashop, etc., which they're trying to connect with carriers and WMS to be able to work. But in this case, the requests we've had haven't concerned marketplaces; they're really small and medium-sized companies looking to equip themselves. Some of the determining factors are costs, which are a little lower than those of major accounts, and speed of implementation.

Apart from the aspects of internal and customer communication, are there any other developments or other elements that you see coming in the near future on this aspect of warehouse digitalization?

It's our realization that something interesting seems to be happening, as I was telling you about our future third activity. We're talking about collaborative logistics, which will come into its own over the next few months and years, even if it's already started. We're moving towards greater flexibility and collaboration. It's something very important.

What advice would you give to someone wishing to launch a consulting business?

It's very important to spend time with your target market, with your customers, to fully understand their needs. You can't spend too much time developing a complete offer, only to find out at the end that it doesn't fit. You need to have something minimum to present to your customers very quickly, so that you can benefit from their feedback, and as you go along, build something more effective by feeding off customer feedback. This is very important if you want to monetize your business and expertise.

Are you currently recruiting?

Our target for 2021 is to recruit 6 people: project managers, senior consultants and consultants.

Thank you Nizar for your insights."

Check out our other interviews with Meja, and YouMeo.