STORES Magazine - January 2009 - (Page 50)

NUTS AND BOLTS / IT SYSTEMS Smooth Operator Danier Leather boosts customer experience with systems upgrade BY SANDY SMITH J ust a couple of years ago, a shopper at Danier Leather might spend 30 minutes working with an associate to find that jacket in just the right color with that perfect fit. She might then spend more time waiting for the POS computer to unfreeze. If she was redeeming a gift certificate, she’d hand over the paper for verification. If the full amount wasn’t used, the clock ticked while a manager handwrote another certificate for the balance. If she paid by credit or debit card, it had to be swiped at a separate verification terminal. The shopping experience was luxurious; the purchase process, maddening. “Danier is affordable fashion leather,” CIO Phil Cutter says. “Our customers want something that’s fashionable and everyday-wearable without spending a thousand dollars; they’re more likely to spend a couple of hundred. “The majority of our items hit that middle niche,” he says, but “we degraded the entire experience by having a nine-minute wait to complete the transaction. We needed that final customer touch-point to really shine.” Danier, a 91-store leather goods designer, manufacturer and retailer based in Toronto, was also missing out on valuable data that could be gained through customer relationship management software. Cutter, then, had a tall order: faster transactions with debit/credit processing at the register, fully integrated CRM and real-time data about each store. And it had to be a solution that was easy for his modest-sized IT staff to manage. Danier teamed with Richardson, Texas-based Fujitsu Transaction Solutions for a complete technology overhaul. Fujitsu’s GlobalSTORE application handled the POS, cash management and back-office challenges; CustomerCENTER integrated the CRM. StoreCENTER allowed for centralized store management and readily accessible data, and ValueCENTER replaced cumbersome gift certificates with a cardbased system that integrates with POS and web applications. ReturnCENTER allowed for easier processing of returns (previously, managers had to calculate sales tax differences by hand if an item purchased at one store was returned at another location). “Trying to take on all of this change simultaneously is quite a project in the whole scheme of things,” says Keith McNamara, Fujitsu’s senior vice president of software operations. “It’s unusual for someone the size of Danier with a limited IT staff.” Making the transition quickly was a priority for Danier. The pilot phase was undertaken during the fall selling season — a busy one for retail in general and particularly so for Danier, given its product line’s winter appeal. Store managers begged to get in on the upgrades as quickly as possible. “The minute any of our stores heard how much faster it worked, we suddenly had a demand for more pilots,” Cutter says. The pilot program was doubled to six stores, and a system-wide rollout was completed in little more than a month during spring 2006. “Not only was it done in five weeks, but the key was that the people at the head office didn’t know we’d converted,” Cutter says. “That was the definition of success.” 50 STORES / JANUARY 2009 WWW.STORES.ORG http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - January 2009

STORES Magazine - Jauary 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Mechanical Marvel P&G Invests in Ocado Now I Remember What Shoppers Think 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Breaking the Monotony Multi-Channel Concept2Watch E-Commerce Analytics Category Management IT Systems In-Store Technology IT Systems Communications Website Strategy Communications SOA Energy Video Surveillance Employee Theft Online Fraud Industry Perspective Loeb Retail Letter ARTS Update Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword End Cap

STORES Magazine - January 2009

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