STORES Magazine - March 2009 - (Page 43)

SKYPAD Sales Chain data, all types of information can be analyzed at the SKU level and used to enable and affect the decision-making process, increasing business performance. Jay Hakami, president and CEO of Sky I.T. Group, says SKYPAD allows retailers to look at performance at the POS level. “What is selling very well in Michigan may not do well in South Dakota,” he says, “and they need to make a decision to move goods or redistribute. They can go down to any parameter of a product.” mediately. Dave Mitchell, program director for IBM SaaS (which hosts SKYPAD), says that although the SaaS model has been around for more than two decades, it has become prevalent in the last few years because it allows for quick and easy deployment. The spread of high bandwidth Internet connectivity across the globe also has made SaaS solutions easier and more readily available. Rapid growth Many companies have built or re-built their applications from the ground up to Snapshots and overviews take advantage of SaaS. Mitchell estiSKYPAD allows users to collect, ormates that the SaaS model is growing ganize and view this information with five times faster than the traditional softlittle more than the click of a mouse. ware models. One of the biggest advanTheory saw an immediate increase in tages is the low set-up costs: With the efficiency of creatshrinking margins, ing such reports, and a many industry obstreamlined process servers believe that The SaaS model meant that a single apmore retailers will miis growing plication could collect grate to SaaS platforms five times faster and organize data for to deliver and host most than traditional multiple users. Giving of their software applisoftware the apparel retailer imcations. models. mediate access to POS “It’s difficult to get – IBM’s Dave Mitchell information, SKYPAD customers to invest allows for unprecedent$300,000 or a half-miled sales chain visibility and users can get lion dollars for an in-house merchandissnapshots and overviews of trends ing system,” Hakami says. But for “a through use of the dashboards. couple thousand dollars per month with When dealing with retail partners, it is low set-up fees you can be up and runsometimes difficult for wholesalers to ning in three weeks with immediate bengain visibility into returns, exchanges efits” via SaaS. and how certain products move based Hakami points out that companies on sales, promotions and other events. have been paying much closer attention By observing and analyzing this data on to their bottom lines, performing even a weekly basis via SKYPAD, Theory’s more analysis to trim fat. For those in merchandisers “can check out sales over the retail industry, that often means minthe weekend and take the appropriate imizing chargebacks and returns and actions,” Shigemasa says. keeping a closer eye on product moveSky I.T. typically works with a client in ment. the early stages of deployment to identi“We are dealing with one of the major fy the data sources and determine the retailers in the country, and one of the metrics they want to see. From there, the things they told us was that being able platform is custom-tailored to the client. to react faster is really going to be the SKYPAD is a Software-as-a-Service most important action item for the com(SaaS) solution, so users don’t need to ing years,” he says. StORES install special software or build up extra back-end infrastructure; they also can Craig Guillot is a New Orleans-based gain access to the software almost imwriter and photographer. WWW.STORES.ORG http://www.cicgf.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG

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

STORES Magazine - March 2009 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Movers and Spenders What Shoppers Think Take Your Laundry Online 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Luxury for Less Q & A CONCEPT2WATCH Checkout Management Online Entrepreneurs Sustainability POS Online Strategy Online Scheduling SaaS Online Marketing Merchandise Security PCI Compliance LPinformation Supplier Directory Exception Reporting Industry Perspective Theft Research LOEB Retail Letter ARTS Update Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar End Cap

STORES Magazine - March 2009

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