Paving the way for enhanced collaboration
Published: February 2, 2006
This article was originally published in Retailspeak magazine
To be successful in the retail marketplace, you can't go it alone. Retailers around the world have known for a long time that collaboration is key to a successful business. Technology today can help support retailers in their drive to develop more transparent and efficient processes whether internally or with suppliers and trading partners.
Although many retailers are still dependent on manual processes, a number of companies are beginning to see the value in using electronic collaboration and communications products. As businesses strive to establish enterprise-wide standards and to enhance interactions between different departments and stakeholders, improved communication is becoming a must.
Streamlined processes
Collaboration can improve processes in a number of areas. When market conditions change or new strategies are implemented, stores can benefit if a process is in place that helps to ensure all retail employees receive the relevant information quickly and easily. Collaboration can also help to ensure improved consistency across all stores and channels, which is vital if customers are going to relate to a retailer's brand.
One of the most popular reasons for collaboration in retail today, besides improved internal communication, is in response to the demand for close working relationships between retailers and their suppliers. With product life cycles shorter than ever before, it is important that both retailers and suppliers can work together to develop, allocate, and replenish products quickly and efficiently to gain maximum sales in a short sales period.
Increased visibility
South Africa-based retail company Edcon, which trades in more than 700 stores in southern Africa, has embraced technology with application developer 3fifteen as a means to better collaborate with its merchandise suppliers. Chief information officer at Edcon Henri Slabbert says, "We give our suppliers access to a database, which holds information ranging from product performance to shipment details.
"Our suppliers benefit because they can see exactly how their products are performing in our stores and compare their performance to the average performance of all their competitors. Because they are always kept up to date on product performance, they can advise us on how to better position their products to boost sales. Obviously, the information we give to our suppliers is secure so one supplier's information can't be viewed by another.
"Edcon also gets a better view of its supplier base. We know when a supplier will ship, so we have a clear idea of how to prepare for deliveries. Essentially, we're taking the bureaucracy out of the supply chain pipeline so that we can manage our business more efficiently. With more available information, we are ultimately becoming more competitive."
Quick response to demand
Retailers are constantly challenged by working in a fast-paced environment. With a more transparent supply chain, they can react more quickly to any changes that occur. Slabbert says, "It's vital that we are flexible enough to adapt to changing conditions. Whether adjusting stock levels to fit promotional offers or managing resources to coincide with peak periods such as Christmas and holidays, we have to stay on our toes.
"By collaborating across the supply chain, we know how much merchandise is going to arrive and when. We can work out how many staff we need to unpack that merchandise on a given day, and we can avoid out-of-stock scenarios. Similarly, our suppliers can ensure that they have the capacity to cope with our business needs."
Enhanced cooperation between stores
With the right technology infrastructure in place, suppliers and retailers alike can have access to up-to-date information in real time. Slabbert says, "Access to information is key. We need to be able to exploit our good decisions, so if we've bought something that really flies, we'd like to be able to act on it as quickly as possible."
Simplified communications
One of the problems facing retailers today is over-communication. Store managers receive up to 100 e-mail messages a day containing instructions. Edcon believes that a more collaborative approach to in-store communica¬tions could be the answer to this problem.
Slabbert says, "We're in the process of creat¬ing a store communications portal whereby a communications department can consolidate instructions and post them on our intranet. That way, managers don't have to deal with conflicting requests. We'll also save on the cost of sending out hundreds of unnecessary e-mails, which is a big plus for any retailer."
Collaboration solutions
An increasingly common and cost-effective approach to enterprise-wide collaboration is to implement a portal or intranet-based solution. Leading UK retailer Marks and Spencer has taken advantage of Microsoft portal technology to help improve communications in its 300 UK stores. The company worked with solutions provider Conchango to improve productivity by helping to ensure that employees can share and reuse information more effectively.
Marks and Spencer chose Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server collaboration technology. Now that staff has access to up-to-date information, they can make smarter decisions fast and deliver improved support for all areas of the business.
With access to a document repository containing best-practice guidelines (with all documents stored and indexed by Office SharePoint Portal Server), staff can find common documents and templates in one central location. This helps to ensure greater consistency of processes and service across all stores.
Supersol, a leading supermarket chain in Israel, operates 7 retail sub brands and 172 countrywide branches. This retailer wanted to ensure that its suppliers could carry out their own analyses of the sales of their brands. Yitzhak Shafer, CIO at Supersol, says, "We were looking for a system that would give us an overall picture of the chain and show us details such as scope of sales, turnover, and inventory as well as information regarding our customer club."
Supersol chose Panorama's NovaView business intelligence platform based on Office SharePoint Portal Server. It was rolled out to 30 head office employees on the intranet side and a number of Supersol suppliers on the extranet side. Shafer says, "Panorama's business intelligence system allows Supersol to maintain its competitive advantage over other chains. It enables the company's decision makers to obtain a general picture of customers, prices, internal processes, and marketing trends, and thus make better decisions."
Achieving business success
A collaborative approach to retailing has a significant impact on more than just processes. Slabbert says, "We've seen it in our stock turn. We've got better products in store. And our prices are much more competitive as well. It goes to show that when you pull all of your resources together, whether internal or external, you can make a big difference to the success of your business."
