Our #PPGProud heroes are those among us who truly embody what it is to live The PPG Way. This time, we’re thrilled to share the heroic efforts of two colleagues from the same team in our IT France function, Vincent Bouillez and Jean-Philippe Chevrier, who each found outstanding ways of supporting customers during lockdown.
Day to day, Jean-Philippe (or JP, as he prefers to be called) manages the DALI team, who support the point-of-sales tool for the 210+ stores in Architectural Coatings (AC) France.
Vincent and his team provide the interface between IT and business by listening to the business needs, communicating them to IT, finding the appropriate solution, and also coordinating all activities between the various IT teams.
Vincent: Hearing the Customer Distress Call
During the lockdown period, countless companies had to close their doors, leaving many of our customers with no means of acquiring our products. But one of our longstanding customers in France was determined to continue supplying to its clients despite the restrictions.
They asked our colleagues in France if they would be able to create a new flow on their e-commerce platform which would enable end-users to continue placing and receiving orders. When Vincent heard the request, he partnered with them to identify their specific needs and goals.
With this project being a big challenge, we had to move fast with minimum resources due to lockdown.
Vincent
Unstoppable Despite Lockdown
Vincent is our IT manager for EMEA South and has been working with us for the last 22 years. Vincent has held several different positions in the IT department, but what keeps him going is allowing the business to gain new markets. So, he was the perfect person to take the lead on this project.
By the end of April, he had formulated a flow that meant orders taken on our customer’s website were diverted directly to PPG through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for packaging and fulfillment.
By the end of June, the team had received thousands of orders via the new flow. The customer was incredibly impressed with the rapid development and reliability of the solution. Thanks to Vincent’s hard work and customer focus, they were able to continue to satisfy its own clients throughout the lockdown.
What an amazing way to embody The PPG Way value “We partner with customers to create mutual value”.
Reinhardt Buytendorp, PPG senior front line IT manager, AC EMEA South
Jean-Philippe: A Golden Opportunity to Keep Orders Flowing
Jean-Philippe is also an IT manager and works alongside Vincent. In 15 years, he has been very mobile within the group, gaining working experience in several teams (IT SAP Finance, internal controls, accounts payables, purchase to pay and IT point of sales). During the lockdown, he saw the golden opportunity to create a new order flow that would help customers get the products they needed.
He directed an IT project to implement a direct delivery flow for online orders of white paint to pass directly from France’s chief point of sale system to another plant that uses a different tool. He had to work around the issue of having three different systems trying to communicate with each other, and to ensure that online orders could be processed and fulfilled.
What I appreciated about this project was its real sense of team work with individuals from all services (digital, marketing, sales, IT, logistics, supply, color experts, transport, …), working from home and focused on the same goal: enabling our customers to buy our paint and to continue doing their business.
Jean-Philippe
Clear Priority Leads to Success
Jean-Philippe and his team managed to ensure perfect communication between the three systems. Customers could not only benefit from direct delivery (from stores allowed to trade), but also from a ‘click & collect’ system which allowed them to place and collect orders for white and tinted paint products.
Even before the project was fully live – and well before the team had communicated it to customers – orders had already started pouring in. It was clear that the solution was so intuitive and easy to use that clients started successfully placing orders almost immediately. Needless to say, it was very well received.
The team demonstrated great PPG spirit. It just goes to show what can be done in a short amount of time when the priority is clear and resources available.
Reinhardt
Truly embodying The PPG Way value “We make it happen”, Jean-Philippe’s dedication proves there is no limit to what can be done to help make our customers’ experience a great one.
Partnering to Create Mutual Value
In the face of adversity, Vincent and Jean-Philippe held strong to the core values that matter most to our company and went above and beyond to help our customers through very difficult circumstances.
When we ‘Partner with customers to create mutual value’ and do everything in our power to ‘Make it happen’, we not only create win-wins for everyone, but we make the world a brighter place.