Cochez and CIA power their digital transformation by basing their infrastructure on Microsoft Azure

Cochez y CIA is a company with more than 50 years in the Panamanian market, offering a wide variety of building materials, finishing touches, hardware, and other items that supply everything from basic home needs to all types of construction projects. They currently have 21 stores across the country, making them an industry leader.

In 2019, the Panamanian company began a digital transformation project that included adopting a new point of sale that would allow for faster invoicing.

By then, the Panamanian Directorate General of Revenue (DGI) had launched a pilot plan for companies in different market sectors to begin implementing electronic invoicing. Cochez y CIA were among the 43 companies chosen to be part of this plan and to try to seek to identify a number of benefits for the taxpayers and the economy of the country itself.

An e-invoicing cloud solution

To begin implementing the pilot plan set by DGI, Cochez y CIA sought the help of Hypernova Labs, a Microsoft partner, with whom they had been working on their digital transformation goal. Hypernova Labs already had the Aludra Cloud solution to improve sales processes, but it still did not offer the e-invoicing service. After six months of development, they were able to incorporate a module that allowed for the generation of this type of invoice.

Aludra Cloud is a product built entirely with Microsoft tools, from its infrastructure, continuous improvement system, and development tools.

"Aludra Cloud's infrastructure resides in Azure," says Axel De León, General Manager of Hypernova Labs, referring to Microsoft's cloud platform that enables existing applications to be hosted and managed while taking advantage of cloud computing. "And it has a continuous improvement deployment through Azure DevOps," he adds. Azure DevOps is a tool that provides developer services for support teams to plan work and to collaborate on code development while enabling compiling and deploying applications.

"To be able to publish the engine externally we use compiled containers in Visual Studio. Once these are compiled, they are uploaded to Azure App Service and Azure Kubernetes Service," De León adds. In turn, all the relational information generated is stored in Azure SQL Server, and the non-relational information, such as electronic invoices, is stored in Azure Storage. This last tool offers durable, high-availability storage.

Agility and efficiency

Between January and July 2021, Cochez y CIA have issued more than 1 million electronic invoices. Due to the speed of the transaction, the operational burden was significantly reduced. "Before we had to use the fiscal printer that took a minute to do an analysis of the data before the invoice was printed," recalls Cecilia Arias, vice president of technology and innovation at Cochez. "Now we have the invoice in a second," she adds.

In addition, another of the benefits that the Panamanian company has achieved is reflected in the sales on credit. "Previously the process for submitting accounts and collecting money amounts involved sending the physical paper to the customer," says Fernando Guardia, CFO at Cochez y CIA. She adds, "Today they can log in from the web and instantly see all their invoices." Katia Melendez, Credit Customer Service Manager at Cochez y CIA, adds, "By not having to prepare statements and send it by messenger, you save a lot of time on administrative tasks. The feasibility of collection becomes easier, which results in significant savings."

Just as e-invoicing has become synonymous with agility and efficiency for Cochez y CIA, it has also significantly increased customer satisfaction. Customers can now access a portal to check their status and receive invoices via e-mail for their online purchases.