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Retailstars ontwikkelt mobiele apps voor retail en groothandel die rechtstreeks gebruikmaken van de processen en logica van Novulo.
Consumers handle almost everything via their smartphones. In the workplace, however, things are often different. Employees still frequently walk back and forth between the shop floor and the warehouse, work with paper forms, or have to return to a PC to perform a simple task. This isn't because mobile apps are missing, but because traditional ERP systems were never designed for them.
Retailstars develops mobile apps for retail and wholesale that directly utilize the processes and business logic of the Novulo platform. As a result, no extra backends or duplicate business logic are required, and data always remains up to date.
Mobile point-of-sale systems have existed for years, but they are still rarely used, says Rob van der Heijden, founder and CEO of Retailstars. “I was in a store recently and asked an employee if a product was in stock. The person then spent minutes searching in the warehouse. That information simply isn't available digitally. Some retailers have their act together better than others, but there is still a world of progress to be made,” he observes.
According to Van der Heijden, this applies not only to stores. In logistics and service sectors, many processes are also not yet fully digitized, such as order picking, inventory management, collecting signatures, and processing work orders.
In many cases, building mobile access for a traditional ERP is not a simple project. Because the system does not natively offer that functionality, an extra backend must be built to synchronize data with the ERP. Often, a copy of the business logic even needs to be loaded onto this backend for mobile applications. "This creates extra management overhead, higher development costs, and a greater risk of synchronization errors," explains Van der Heijden.
Van der Heijden does not encounter these issues when interacting with the Novulo platform. “You can easily call any process in the Novulo ERP directly via an API, or application interface. This way, the business logic and data reside in only one place, with security and user roles and permissions already well-considered.” Building a mobile app is therefore quite simple, because the processes in the backend are already functional. They just need to be triggered by a button from the mobile app.
To build the mobile apps, Van der Heijden uses the Flutter development platform, which generates native apps for Android, iOS, and Windows from a single codebase. This approach has major advantages because construction and maintenance costs are lower. After all, there is no need to create separate versions for each of these platforms, and therefore no separate maintenance is required. “Moreover, Flutter integrates perfectly with Novulo’s standard API stack, allowing us to realize new mobile applications quickly."
Mobile apps not only make processes faster, but also give employees direct access to relevant information. Van der Heijden sketches an example from retail. A sales associate is standing by a fitting room and immediately sees that a customer left an item in their online shopping cart yesterday. Previous purchases are also visible. "This allows you to provide much more personalized advice. You know what someone has already bought and can respond to that immediately."
Moreover, the sales process can largely take place before the customer even reaches the checkout.
"You can even handle mobile payments right at the fitting room. In that case, a traditional checkout is no longer necessary, and the customer receives their receipt digitally on the spot."
Mobile apps thus become a natural, user-friendly layer around existing processes rather than a standalone project alongside the ERP. Because processes, data, and security are managed centrally, every employee always has access to up-to-date information, regardless of where they are working. Since the intelligence resides within the ERP platform, the investment and development time for the app are significantly lower than with traditional custom solutions.
"In our private lives, we expect everything to work instantly via our phones," says Van der Heijden. "It should be no different in the workplace. Think of checking inventory, processing work orders, or handling an order on the spot. The technology is already there. The ERP just needs to enable that way of working."
In addition to mobile access, smartphones offer extra capabilities such as push notifications, location-based functionality, and the use of cameras and scanners. By combining these features directly with existing ERP processes, new ways of working emerge without adding complexity to the underlying systems.
Composable ERP literally brings business processes to the shop floor: one platform, one source of truth, and a mobile experience that employees use as intuitively as the apps on their own smartphones.
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