STORES Magazine - November 2008 - (Page 42)

NUTS AND BOLTS / CUSTOM SOFTWARE One for the Books Customized BI system gives Follett greater visibility, flexibility BY FIONA SOLTES I magine a cycle in which the large majority of your goods are sold in a couple of brief “rush” seasons — with the full expectation that customers will sell those goods back to you at a later date. That’s just one of the challenges facing banking and commuFollett Higher Education Group of Oak nications. Brook, Ill., part of the family-owned “Clarity is a cusFollett Corp., the country’s largest tomized-application provider of educational tools and services. development shop,” As anyone who’s been to college says Gary Gilmer, a knows, textbooks are big business in principal in the company. “We don’t lithe weeks leading up to the beginning cense. We don’t have products we’re sellof each semester, and results in big ing over and over to multiple customers.” returns at their end. The ability to reach and retain cusAdd to that the facts that the group tomers “is more important than ever,” operates more than 800 college bookGilmer says. “More and more, cusstores across the country — each with its tomers are beginning to expect greater own required texts, rush seasons and degrees of technology in the shopping website — and offers used books to experience. They want to be engaged more than 1,800 other independently without necessarily having to talk to a owned bookstores, and it only makes person. … Having a kiosk that doesn’t sense that it would need a one-of-a-kind look the same as a competitor’s is imsolution for improving productivity. portant. More than ever, you want to be In addition to boosting sales, the primary able to look at technology as a way to goals were to improve customer service to engage your customer.” students, faculty and administrators; provide greater visibility to key performance Partnership and commitment indicators; improve inventory manageFollett is a company well accustomed ment; and optimize store labor by focusing to breaking ground. Founded in 1873, it on communication and decibegan using computers — SOFTWARE sion-making rather than rouan IBM punch-card sorting GOALS tine data entry, according to system — as early as 1952. Boost sales Michael C. Tolly, director of It was the first publisher to course materials for Follett Improve customer develop racially integrated Higher Education Group. textbooks, as well as a proservice to students, The solution came courgram for the educationally faculty and administesy of Clarity Consulting, a trators disadvantaged. It was also Chicago-based software de- Provide greater the first publisher to offer sign and development firm visibility to key perbooks online. that specializes in … speIn 1989, the company informance indicators cializing. In addition to re- Improve inventory troduced Tom-Tracks, a tail, its diverse portfolio in- management state-of-the-art system for cludes companies in health managing course materials; care, insurance, investment Optimize store labor within five years, it was in 42 STORES / NOVEMBER 2008 hundreds of other bookstores across the country, too. The biggest challenge with Tom-Tracks was that it was snapshot software that could only look at a single point in time. CourseTracks, the new course materials system developed with Clarity, offers full visibility across all stores in real time. “Basically, it leverages 800 stores for any store that needs a book,” says Elio DiStaola, director of public and campus relations with Follett Higher Education Group. “It really escalates the level of customer service we can provide. First and foremost, it just has such robust functionality. It eliminates the need for multiple store staff to be behind the scenes managing course materials so they can spend more time on the floor where they should be.” CourseTracks was developed by a team of representatives from Follett and Clarity: The design portion took several years, followed by a couple more years for the rollout. Installation in U.S. stores was complete by December 2007. The system uses a variety of Microsoft technologies, Visual Studio.NET, Crystal Reports, SQL Server and a service-oriented architecture, resulting in a centralized information system that connects all of Follett’s stores to the home office. In the individual stores, a Smart Client model automates a number of funcWWW.STORES.ORG http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - November 2008

STORES Magazine - November 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Every Cup Counts What Shoppers Think Less Park Time, More Shop Time 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Retail Held Captive First Look Concept2Watch Marketing Technology Custom Software PCI Compliance Data Security Arts Update Newsbeat LP Issues: Q&A Cover Story Surveillance Systems Online Fraud Industry Perspective LOEB Retail Letter Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - November 2008

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