MVR Cash & Carry Builds a Connected Wholesale Distribution Platform to Deliver Exceptional Customer Service with Business Central and LS Retail
About the Company
For MVR Cash & Carry, exceptional customer service has always been the company's greatest competitive advantage. Serving restaurants, foodservice operators, retailers, and independent businesses, MVR has built its reputation on saying "yes" to customers. Whether sourcing specialty items, maintaining an extensive product assortment, or responding quickly to changing customer needs, the company has built lasting customer relationships in an increasingly competitive wholesale market.
"Our main differentiator is our customer service," says Mike DeMarco, Project Lead for Manufacturing Logistics at MVR Cash & Carry. "The ability to work with customers and bring in whatever they need and to hold a wide variety. That's really what sets us apart from our competitors." Delivering that level of service, however, requires accurate information, efficient operations, and the ability to manage an increasingly complex inventory.
The Challenge
Rather than limiting product selection to reduce complexity, MVR continued expanding its inventory to meet customer demand. Managing that growing assortment requires systems capable of handling increasingly sophisticated inventory, pricing, warehouse, merchandising, and financial processes.
"Our competitive advantage would be our variety of products and the number of items that we carry in stock," Mike said. "That's why we were actually looking to move to the ERP—to help us carry that number of items successfully and be able to work on that amount of data easier than we could with our legacy system."
"We weren’t just replacing software, we were working together to build
a platform that could support where the business wanted to go next."
Mike DeMarco, Project Lead at MVR Cash & Carry
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That complexity appeared in practical ways. MVR often sells the same product in multiple configurations—for example, a case of 32 bottles of Windex, a case of 10 bottles, or individual bottles. In the legacy system, those relationships could become disconnected, reducing confidence in inventory data.
"Our legacy system had a very loose way of connecting items where they could become unhooked," Mike explained. "We couldn't trust the data." MVR's legacy environment—Store Management Suite, separate QuickBooks/Sage accounting, and a Microsoft Access reporting database—had served the company for years but struggled to support modern wholesale distribution. As eCommerce expanded, disconnected applications made it difficult to maintain accurate inventory, support warehouse mobility, and generate timely business insights.
"We were starting our eCommerce, and we didn't have reliable inventory numbers," Mike said. "We needed to bring in technologies like handhelds for receiving and moving inventory. Our legacy system just didn't have the database to hold the information we wanted."
Leadership also lacked a single, trusted view of the business because reporting required pulling information from multiple systems. "They had reached the point where they'd outgrown their existing software," said Mark Persaud, Senior Solution Architect at ArcherPoint. "The environment wasn't providing the capabilities they needed around omnichannel operations, eCommerce integration, and future growth." Rather than implementing a generic ERP, MVR wanted a technology partner that understood wholesale grocery distribution and could build a connected Microsoft platform tailored to its business.
The Solution
After evaluating Oracle NetSuite, SAP, Sage X3, and Infor, MVR selected Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as the foundation for its next generation of business operations.
"It really came down to Sage and Microsoft," recalls DeMarco. "A lot of it had to do with the familiarity the ownership had with Microsoft and their faith that, going forward, Microsoft would continue tackling the kinds of problems we needed to solve."
Equally important was selecting an implementation partner with deep wholesale distribution expertise. ArcherPoint designed a solution that connects finance, inventory, warehousing, merchandising, pricing, analytics, and retail operations within a unified Microsoft ecosystem. "We weren't just replacing software," said Mark. "We were working together to build a platform that could support where the business wanted to go next." Business Central provides the operational and financial foundation, while LS Retail delivers merchandising, promotions, point-of-sale, and retail operations functionality. Insight Works modernizes warehouse operations through mobile receiving, inventory movement, and warehouse execution.
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The platform was further extended with advanced pricing management, vendor rebate management, automated label development, and scale integration—allowing MVR to manage complex pricing, automate rebate processing, synchronize shelf and scale pricing, and streamline merchandising workflows directly within Business Central.
Instead of relying on spreadsheets and manual reconciliation, pricing, rebates, inventory, and operational processes now operate together in a unified system, improving accuracy while reducing administrative effort. More importantly, MVR now has a scalable operational foundation capable of supporting future growth.
A Data-Driven Strategy
Beyond modernizing operations, MVR wanted to become a data-driven organization where decisions are based on trusted information rather than disconnected reports. "We definitely had the vision of data first…we needed a change in how we were capturing data and storing it and using it," said DeMarco.
Using Microsoft Fabric and Power BI, operational data is brought together, refined into trusted business datasets, and delivered through dashboards that support faster, more informed decision-making. Improved visibility helps leadership optimize purchasing, inventory, pricing, merchandising, forecasting, and overall business performance.
Before implementing the Microsoft platform, forecasting was largely a manual exercise driven by disconnected spreadsheets. "It was almost non-existent," Mike said. "Forecasting was being done ad hoc…Excel spreadsheets, nothing being saved, nothing. With Power Platform and Fabric, the world is completely open to us." For MVR, analytics has shifted from simply reporting on past performance to helping the business make better decisions for the future.
What's Next
MVR already has its sights set on the next phase of its transformation. While the current implementation establishes a modern operational foundation, the company's longer-term vision is to simplify processes through intelligent automation and AI. "Phase one is sort of just get in there, get started, do what we're doing today," Mike said. "Then phase two is we want to automate and simplify as much as we possibly can." One of the first opportunities is automating routine administrative work. "Right now, we have a team of office assistants that manage invoices and things like that," he explained. "We just want to completely automate as much as possible with agents and reading invoices—just passing information."
By building on Business Central, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, and Power Platform, MVR is creating a foundation for AI agents that can automate manual work, accelerate routine processes, and allow employees to focus on higher-value activities while continuing to deliver the exceptional customer service that defines the business.
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Learn more about MVR Cash & Carry.
What Makes ArcherPoint Different?
Our clients see their business systems as unique and important to their competitive position. They prefer software and technology to support their business processes, not the other way around. Our clients are looking for a strategic partnership with the company that implements their software, not just a vendor. They demand the most talented, experienced professionals who understand how to quickly, efficiently solve their business issues. If this describes you, we invite you to contact us to learn more about our people, company and solutions.