Mobile workers like district and store managers—feel overwhelmed by the amount of information they receive daily. E-mails, reports, links, attachments, and video recordings can take an exorbitant amount of time to sort through and digest. These managers need a versatile, job-specific solution that allows them to spend less time in the backroom digging through information, and more time on the floor connecting with their employees and customers. District managers need the right information at their fingertips at the right time, with a built-in workflow that ensures this information is relevant to employees and their stores. A comprehensive solution includes the elements of a dashboard (the presentation of real-time information for the district manager), a workbench (the single point of access to information and systems for the store manager), and a scorecard (metrics reports against a point in time for the employee). In order to effectively implement a manager workbench or dashboard, you need an infrastructure that is integrated, open, and extensible. This allows you to select metrics that offer the most viable information and provide actionable thresholds. Communication and collaboration challenges of retail organizations cannot be satisfied by an individual software product or by a single, monolithic environment. As a result, the manager workbench requires a systematic approach that integrates a rich client, servers, and services with a comprehensive standards-based development environment. The Microsoft platform is based on a client-servers-services infrastructure that embraces a complete and unified user experience—including rich functionality on the desktop, mobile devices, and browser-based Web tools—that provides broader reach within organizations. A store workbench can do the following: | • | Reduce busy work and paper work — By providing one common platform where people can collaborate, mobile workers can easily communicate and report results to headquarters | | • | Increase customer satisfaction — By giving store personnel quick access to product and process information, customers no longer have to wait for valuable information to drive their purchase decisions | | • | Increase employee satisfaction — By empowering employees with information, you reduce the potential for employees to perform repetitive tasks | | • | Ensure store performance — With real-time access to operational information, you reduce paperwork which allows you more time to give superior customer service |
The Following Partners Offer Store Workbench Solutions Based on Microsoft Technology:Accenture Accenture's global retail practice helps clients in several areas including merchandise planning, supply chain operations, marketing effectiveness and store performance improvement. This assistance ultimately helps drive shareholder value, deliver bottom line results, and enable retailers to move to a higher level of performance. Infosys Infosys supplies Global 1000 corporations from all retail segments with robust IT solutions. Their products and services are geared toward customer loyalty, supply chain management, store productivity, vendor collaboration, and transportation management. They span the breadth of retail industry processes and balance technology with process-increasing revenue, reducing costs, improving margins, and maximizing capital efficiency. Siebel Siebel Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of business applications software for the retail industry. Siebel Retail enables retailers to attract, engage and retain customers, with integrated marketing, sales and customer service CRM applications through all stages of the purchase cycle. With more than 50 retail customer deployments worldwide, Siebel Systems provides retailers with a proven set of industry-specific best practices, CRM applications, market-leading analytics products, and business processes, empowering them to consistently deliver superior customer experiences and establish more profitable customer relationships. Wipro The Wipro Technologies retail business unit caters to IT needs in retail, consumer-packaged goods (CPG), distribution, and the food and beverage industries. Services include: IT consulting, full life-cycle development, production support, infrastructure services, and more. Wipro's solutions are in customer relationship management (CRM) and ACRM, stores management, merchandizing and pricing, and supply chain planning and execution. Wipro uses Microsoft products such as Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC, Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and the Microsoft Office System Editions.
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