PRESENTATION
I'm Léa Ecobichon, legal counsel at Jef de Bruges, a French company with over 500 stores in France and abroad. We operate mainly through franchises and rentals. Our range includes chocolates, sugared almonds, confectionery and ice cream.
WHAT WERE YOUR CHALLENGES?
When we chose Synergee, we faced a number of challenges. At the time, we had to manage over 130 leases, each with critical deadlines that we couldn't miss. The first challenge was to find a solution with an alert system to warn us of important deadlines, such as the end of a lease. Another challenge was to centralize information, particularly between our legal and development departments. We needed more cross-functionality, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, when we had to take back all our leases and process numerous documents. If we'd had Synergee at that point, we'd have saved an enormous amount of time.
WHY CHOOSE SYNERGEE?
We had met with two suppliers, one of whom was Synergee. What appealed to us was that Synergee is a complete solution, almost like an ERP, with several modules. Although we were initially interested in the real estate module, we thought that other functionalities might be of interest to us in the future, and that other departments at Jef de Bruges could benefit from it. The second decisive point was the human support. The sales representative in charge of our file was always on hand to answer any questions we had, and this was a very important aspect for us.
WHAT DO YOU APPRECIATE ABOUT SYNERGEE?
Synergee's first strength is the variety of modules available. We started with the real estate module, then quickly added the contract module, which today helps us manage our franchise contracts. With over 500 stores, many of them franchises, contract management is a key issue.
Another of Synergee's strengths is its wealth of functions. For example, for rent calculations, our operational teams often need to make numerous reference calculations, and Synergee makes this work much easier. What's more, for the legal department, having all the information centralized means we can easily pass it on to other departments. Finally, a major element we appreciate is the availability of the Synergee team. When we had a particular requirement concerning the calculation of our rents, Synergee developed a tailor-made functionality for us, which shows their ability to listen and adapt.