Stores Magazine - October 2007 - (Page 104) NUTS AND BOLTS / DATA MANAGEMENT Above Par Solution Set-it-and-forget-it systems alleviate data storage problems at PGA Tour Superstores BY MICHAEL HARTNETT P GA Tour Superstores has positioned itself as a golfer’s paradise, complete with golf simulators, a short course for pitching and a putting green in every store. Over the past two years, the chain has expanded from three locations to eight, with two stores scheduled to open by the end of this year and plans for up to eight new stores annually beginning in 2008. “We outfit our hitting bays with all the latest technology that allows our teachers to provide state-of-the-art lessons,” says Gentry Ganote, CIO for PGA Tour Superstores, which is owned and operated by Atlanta-based Golf & Tennis Pro Shop. “Everybody gets a video of their golf swing and an analysis; we give them a DVD to take home with them. The amount of technology we outfit all of our pros with is state of the art. It’s a very sophisticated teaching environ104 STORES / OCTOBER 2007 ment. And when we sell clubs, each customer is fitted properly with the drivers and irons.” When the data from all that customerfocused technology was combined with huge merchandise assortments, a farflung supply chain and the imminent “We have a pool of storage that is very straightforward, and it makes it very easy to bring a new virtual server on line in just 30 to 45 — Gentry Ganote, minutes.” PGA Tour Superstores launch of an e-commerce presence, it quickly became obvious that PGA Tour Superstores had exceeded its existing storage capabilities. Looking back at the initial system design, Ganote says, “We implemented what we understood to be a mid-tier merchandising system based on Oracle and Sun Solaris, and to augment that we wrote our own tools in the Windows environment for reporting and better inventory management, control and scalability.” But data storage and sales have nearly tripled over the past two years, and “all of a sudden, our server requirements went from three, four or five to 15 and 20,” he says. When the retailer went looking for a service provider to address its data storage needs, it became clear to Ganote that Atlanta-based VeriStor Systems was the appropriate choice. “I have been in the industry for a while and I had heard about them and their skill set previously,” he says. “I had a great deal of respect for them and the engineering talent they have.” VeriStor has grown more than 1,400 percent since its founding in 2001, and president and CEO Ashby Lincoln attributes much of that growth to the WWW.STORES.ORG http://WWW.STORES.ORG
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