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Industry News - May 1st, 2009

 

RETAIL AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Chico’s Adds Task Management and Calendaring

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.


 

Carrefour Gains 360-Degree View of Customers with Data Warehouse

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."


 

Forzani Group Expands Multi-Channel Operations

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."


 

Price Chopper Adds Price Optimization

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."


 

Eastern Mountain Sports Releases Next-Gen E-Commerce Site

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

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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