Sunless, Inc. Achieves Higher Profitability while Delivering Exceptional Customer Service with an End-to-End Microsoft Solution

Background

Sunless, Inc. puts the consumers at the heart of everything they do to deliver healthier, better-looking skin. They use the highest quality ingredients and latest innovations to provide the most natural-looking color. Its founders created the original automated spray tan booth that continues to be the #1 booth on the market today. Its products complement
a wellness lifestyle with ingredients that are gluten-free, paraben-free, cruelty-free, and non-comedogenic.

The Challenge

Sunless faced a unique challenge in managing their tanning booth operations. Many of the salons using their tanning booths are independently owned and operated, often with minimal oversight from the owners. As a result, monitoring solution levels in the booths, tracking on-hand supplies, and identifying equipment maintenance requirements were not efficiently managed. This lack of oversight led to inefficiencies, reduced availability of booths, and decreased profitability. Order fulfillment was challenging as well as the backorder process, with warehouse workers often just looking at shelves and tracking inventory items in Excel. Sunless’ Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP solution was on premises with costly hardware and upkeep. Sunless was looking for a CRM solution as well to manage client sales, especially as it expanded into Australia.

Solution

Velosio recommended that Sunless move its on premises Microsoft Dynamics GP system to the Azure Cloud, hosted by Velosio, for improved access and visibility, coupled with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales to better manage direct sales and bulk sales to distributors. Dynamics GP was then integrated with WithoutWire Inventory management for fulfillment (pick/pack/ship) of inbound and outbound orders. Additional solutions were added for billing automation, intercompany, automated sales tax calculation based on customer location, credit card integration, and more. Microsoft Power Platform with Dataverse provides a secure and cloud-based storage option for Sunless’ data, Power Apps is a way the organization can build apps against business data, and Power BI reporting and dashboards disseminate the data.

Velosio also implemented several Microsoft Azure solutions at Sunless to better manage data:

• Azure PostGRE SQL PaaS: The Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution was leveraged by Velosio to store and manage data generated by Sunless Inc.’s tanning booth IoT devices. This scalable and reliable database solution provides a secure and efficient way to store and access the necessary information.
• Azure Function App: With Azure Function App, Sunless, Inc. could schedule and execute both scheduled and ad-hoc tasks. This capability allows them to automate processes such as reordering supplies, monitoring solution levels, and generating maintenance alerts for the tanning booths. By automating these tasks, Sunless, Inc. ensures that the booths are always well-stocked and maintained, maximizing their availability and profitability.
• Azure Logic App: Azure Logic App plays a crucial role in creating workflows and alerts for Sunless, Inc. By leveraging Logic App’s visual designer and pre-built connectors, they can easily design and implement workflows that trigger specific actions based on predefined conditions. These workflows include notifications for low solution levels, supply reordering, and maintenance requirements, ensuring timely actions are taken to keep the tanning booths operational.
• Azure App Service: Sunless, Inc. utilizes Azure App Service to develop and host their website and API. The website and API facilitate seamless communication and interaction with the IoT infrastructure, enhancing the overall user experience.

System Benefits

By leveraging a unified end-to-end Microsoft solution, Sunless, Inc. successfully streamlined their operations, and improved supply chain management. With better oversight and automation, they achieved higher profitability while delivering exceptional service to their salon partners and end customers. Sunless has expanded to Australia can support growth and multicurrency. The solution has shortened how backorders are created, and uploads tracking numbers so suppliers and end users are more informed.