Industry News - May 1st, 2009
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RETAIL AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS |
Chico’s Adds Task Management and Calendaring
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Chico's implements Gerber Technology's View application and upgrades to the browser enabled version of Gerber's PDM to manage its product data.
Chico's FAS uses View in conjunction with Gerber Technology's PDM
platform to enhance collaboration between vendors by providing a single
source of data. Centralizing data will allow for accurate information
to be gathered more quickly while reducing input redundancy and
improving communications between all parties. Collaboration and
productivity will be further enhanced through View's integrated
calendaring and task management capabilities.
"We have been very happy with the existing Gerber products already in
use at Chico's FAS and believe the addition of View along with the
upgrade to the new version of PDM will enhance our productivity,
collaboration and visibility capabilities," says Kevin McIntosh,
director of application development and delivery, Chico's FAS. "All of
our data will be in one central repository, eliminating silos of
information that typically reside in emails and Excel spreadsheets."
Launched in October of 2008, View is a component of GerberTechnology's
PLM Software Suite for the fashion industry. During implementation,
View will be mapped to Chico's FAS business processes, while taking
into account best practices in order to help them improve workflow,
track fit samples, request quotes, calculate costing and gain
visibility through dashboards utilizing specific KPIs.
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Carrefour Gains 360-Degree View of Customers with Data Warehouse
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Carrefour expands its Teradata
Active Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) environment to support business
analytics within its marketing department. Carrefour gains a 360-degree
real-time view of its customers across multiple customer contact
channels, most notably its brands, hypermarket and supermarket retail
stores.
The Teradata Active EDW provides Carrefour's marketing department with
the three key elements required to achieve its objectives: a large
information capacity to manage high volumes of data, an accelerated
deployment, and the option to process and extract data in near-real
time to meet growing demands from its many business users.
"The project's required speed of deployment represented a real
challenge, and Teradata has been able to meet our schedule, thanks to
their cutting-edge technological solutions, experienced consultants and
unmatched expertise," said Gerard Castrie, marketing and communication
director, Carrefour France.
The new enterprise intelligence platform permits a more detailed
analysis of data relating to consumer behavior and purchasing, while
also providing optimal management of the marketing campaigns that
engage those customers. The Teradata user environment at Carrefour is
growing as well. Eventually, over 70 users will be continuously
submitting complex requests and receiving the desired responses within
moments of their need.
Six months was all it took the teams from Carrefour and Teradata,
including about 20 specialists, to get the expanded data warehouse
project up and running. During this period, the data was integrated,
the data models developed and the load tests carried out.
Carrefour is now able to use technology to better target its customers
effectively and analyze their purchasing behavior, yet it is aiming to
go even further in order to optimize customer satisfaction. The brand
marketers need to be able to manage over 60,000 customer categories and
more than 14 million households within its hypermarkets and
supermarkets.
With Teradata's support, Carrefour is aiming to dramatically improve
its marketing intelligence database by 2010-2011 and to benefit from an
enterprise view of its stores and customers. The French brand wants to
be able to tailor every outlet, hypermarket and supermarket to the
local population and to its environment.
"Our interest in obtaining a global view is simple," says Castrie. "We
want to target every customer in a precise and relevant fashion during
our marketing operations, in order not to over-communicate with them
and to be able to measure or guarantee a significant return on
investment."
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Forzani Group Expands Multi-Channel Operations
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Forzani Group selects GSI's
platform and services as the backbone of its multi-channel strategy.
Forzani Group is the first Canadian retailer to partner with GSI. Under
the seven-year agreement, GSI will provide Forzani Group with
e-commerce technology, order management, fulfillment, and customer care
services. Forzani Group has chosen gsi interactive, the digital agency
of GSI, to provide design services.
With 2009 retail sales revenues of $1.6 billion Canadian dollars,
Forzani Group operates more than 560 stores across Canada under a
number of brand names, including Sport Chek. Sport Chek will be the
first of the company's Web stores to launch on the GSI platform.
"E-commerce was the next step in our multi-channel strategy," says John
Hould, senior vice president of Forzani Group. "We conducted a
comprehensive analysis of solutions and determined we wanted to partner
with a best-of-breed platform provider. GSI was the top choice given
their technology, comprehensive services, e-commerce expertise and
their commitment to serving Canadian retailers and our customers."
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Price Chopper Adds Price Optimization
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Golub, which operates the 116-store Price Chopper supermarket chain in the Northeast United States, selects the DemandTec
Lifecycle Price Optimization platform, which includes Everyday Price
Management and Everyday Price Optimization software services.
Like many supermarket retailers, Price Chopper has a need to become
more efficient in generating the information their business users need
to execute pricing strategies. To address these challenges, Price
Chopper closely evaluated all of the primary vendors offering price
optimization solutions before selecting DemandTec.
"We selected DemandTec because we share the same vision for aligning
and optimizing pricing to drive financial results and price image,"
says Joe Kelley vice president of sales and merchandising for Price
Chopper. "DemandTec's proven experience in the marketplace and superior
science gave us the confidence to select them as a strategic partner
for these initiatives."
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Eastern Mountain Sports Releases Next-Gen E-Commerce Site
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Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS) will re-platform its Web store on a new e-commerce technology platform from GSI Commerce as
part of a multiyear e-commerce technology and order management services
agreement. The next-generation EMS online store is scheduled to launch
on GSI's technology platform this fall.
“We chose GSI because of its market-leading technology platform and
demonstrated capability in helping leading retailers meet their online
business goals," said Jeffrey Neville, chief information officer and
vice president of e-commerce for EMS. "Leveraging GSI's technology
platform and e-commerce expertise will enable us to focus on our core
strengths of high-quality products and industry expertise, while still
maintaining full control of site merchandising, content management and
promotions. Working with GSI will ensure our online presence reinforces
the strengths of the EMS brand."
EMS offers a wide variety of technical gear, performance apparel and
other specialized products from leading brands serving the outdoor
sports industry, including mountaineering, backpacking, climbing,
kayaking, cycling, camping and skiing equipment.
NGC Release RedHorse 2009 Apparel ERP Software
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NGC (New Generation
Computing) releases RedHorse 2009, an ERP solution for apparel,
footwear and fashion. RedHorse 2009 offers secure Web access and
Web-based reporting, which allows authorized users to generate and view
RedHorse reports from any location via the Web. This allows them to
securely access and review business information, such as current
inventory levels. In addition, authorized customers may also use secure
Web access to enter orders, collaborate and review the status of
orders.
RedHorse 2009 includes additional query capabilities and reporting
enhancements, such as the ability to schedule reports to run at
specified times. It also offers reporting flexibility through the use
of SQL reporting services and core datamarts that allow information to
be analyzed in many different formats.
Other features include:
- Secure credit card pre-approval and processing
- Wholesalers and manufacturers can now offer the convenience of credit
card payment to their customers. This provides a flexible alternative
to factoring and/or accounts receivable collections, with the assurance
that credit is pre-approved prior to manufacturing or shipping the
goods.
- Multi-currency selling - RedHorse 2009
supports multiple currencies, allowing companies to extend their
customer base to other countries in order to increase sales and open up
new markets. The multi-currency selling feature starts with order entry
and extends all the way through to accounts receivable.
- Single sign-in access to SQL Series. RedHorse
2009 supports single sign-in access via the newly developed SQL Portal
to any of NGC's SQL Series products - RedHorse, e-PLM and e-SPS for
Global Sourcing and Visibility. The SQL Portal also allows users to
access the RedHorse dashboard, allowing them to view real-time business
data and monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
- Support for pre-packs - Inventory of pre-packed products and the ability to take orders and invoice for pre-packs is included in RedHorse 2009.
- Third-party software integration - The new
release provides full software integration with the Demand Solutions
planning suite from Demand Management, Inc. (DMI) and with the Foxfire
Warehouse Management System (WMS).
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