Empowering employees to provide better service

Since Pet Supplies Plus deployed Dynamics AX to its stores last year, the decision makers at the business have heard lots of feedback from employees who are very happy with the change. “I’ve asked on a number of occasions if they’d like to go back to the old system and, across-the-board, nobody wants to,” Tedder says. “They are very pleased with the features and functionality of the Dynamics POS application and the future ability to evolve the POS application even further.”

The company is still in the early stages of its deployment process and the few dozen stores that are up and running with the new system are only a small sample size of the overall implementation. But Tedder says that he’s already seeing improvements in the time it takes to train employees on Dynamics AX. He explains, “Reducing training time for new team members is going to be extremely important and will result in a material ROI for any retailer using Dynamics AX.”

Taking care of neighbors and their pets

Pet Supplies Plus is also using Dynamics AX to help standardize its data, streamline its workflow, and standardize business processes across all its locations. “Dynamics AX is fulfilling our wish to have one system of record, one version of the truth, and a simplified applications portfolio, especially for the corporate office environment,” says Tedder. “The combination of those things coupled with business intelligence and reporting will yield efficiencies and improve our ordering in the ongoing months—we planned for this; it was part of how we made the decision to go with Microsoft Dynamics AX.”

The most important benefits, however, will be for the neighbors who come in and shop at Pet Supplies Plus locations. Tedder says, “We want to make sure that we provide a convenient option for our customers to purchase supplies for their pets, at a great value. Our goal is to make sure that we capitalize on that magic moment between team members and neighbors when we’re helping them select and purchase the products they need for their pets.”