A generalist ERP, plus supplier price lists in Excel
Uses from Distrify
Product catalog, sales API, Luminovo connector
Time to go-live
< 30 days
In numbers
Live on Luminovo, with the ERP untouched.
< 30 days
from the first data preparation to a live connection with Luminovo
0
changes to the ERP, which keeps running operations and finance
3 steps
prepare the existing data, upload it, switch the connection on
About Telcona AG
Who Telcona is.
Telcona AG is a Swiss franchised distributor of frequency control and acoustic components, batteries and LEDs. With almost 40 years in the business, it supplies customers in telecommunications, medical technology and access control, works closely with Asian manufacturers, and is known for technical support and dependable logistics across Europe.
Telcona’s customers told them the same thing in every conversation: they wanted live stock and prices, and they wanted to source without sending an email. Many of them had already moved their sourcing to Luminovo. To stay in those requests, Telcona had to be on the platform.
The ERP was the obstacle. It runs operations and finance well, but it is a generalist system, built neither for electronics distribution nor for digital sales channels. When Telcona asked its ERP consultant for an API connection to Luminovo, the answer made the real problem visible.
The costs to build and maintain this API connection are not predictable and depend on the readiness of the customer’s ERP system.
The hesitation was fair. Rebuilding the ERP for custom digital requirements is the expensive path, and an open-ended one. Nor would it have been done once: every further sales channel, whether another quoting tool or a marketplace such as Octopart, would have meant another custom project in the ERP. Telcona needed something that understood both sides: the data it already had, in ERP exports and supplier price lists, and what a procurement platform expects to receive.
Why Distrify
A digitallayer in front of the ERP, not a second ERP.
Telcona compared the consultant’s integration quote with Distrify. Three things decided it.
01
Works with the data that existsThe platform reads the ERP exports and supplier price lists Telcona already had. No new data model, no clean-up project first.
02
Luminovo is already connectedThe connection to the procurement platform ships with Distrify, and so do the next channels. Nothing is built per channel.
03
Made for electronics distributionComponent data, stock logic and customer-specific pricing are the product, not a special case to configure around.
The price is a SaaS subscription, not an integration budget that grows with whatever the ERP turns out to need. That makes the business case simple: a fixed, known cost set against the requests Telcona now answers on Luminovo. A clear path to a return, instead of costs nobody could predict.
Implementation
Threesteps, no development cycle.
Prepare the existing data, upload it, switch the connection on. The ERP architecture stayed as it was, and nobody had to learn a new core system.
Uploading files is where it starts, not where it has to stay. A direct ERP integration can follow later, or automatic CSV uploads that keep Distrify current without anyone touching a file. What matters is being live in the shortest possible time and growing the connection from there.
The work that did take time was the data itself: supplier files in different layouts, and deciding which lines belong on a public platform at which price. That is the honest part of the effort, and it is the part a distributor keeps control over.
We needed a solution that could work with our existing systems without requiring expensive custom development. Distrify gave us exactly that: a platform that understands electronics distribution.
The results
No big IT project. A streamlined process.
Telcona opened no development cycle and changed no core system. It prepared the data it already had, switched the connection on and was answering requests on Luminovo within a month. Every further channel follows the same short path.
Live in under 30 days
From the first data preparation to a working connection with Luminovo, including collection, formatting, upload and testing.
The ERP stayed untouched
It keeps running operations and finance. Distrify handles the digital sales channels in front of it.
Costs that can be planned
A clear subscription instead of an integration budget that depends on how ready the ERP turns out to be.
Ready for the next channel
New platforms are activated from the same catalog, not started from zero.
Same ERP. A new sales channel. Live in under a month.
In their words
The speed of implementation was remarkable. In less than a month, we went from discussing API integration challenges to having a fully functional connection with our customers’ procurement platforms.
Built to grow
Telcona laid the foundation. Every connector builds on it.
With Luminovo live, Telcona has laid the groundwork for its digital sales. The catalog, the prices and the stock logic are in place, and they stay in place whatever channel comes next.
Every further connector Distrify builds, to other RFQ tools and marketplaces, can be switched on from that same catalog. Each one reaches more customers on more channels, without another IT project.
