While 58% laggards agreed that they are not able to identify their best customers so that they can offer special incentives to them while shopping, 33% of retail winners were also of the same opinion. Predictably – only 10% of the retail winners had issues in matching inventory to demand, where as 50% of the laggards struggled to match inventory to demand. 68% of the average performers and 57% of the laggards feel that they do not know the customer sentiment till the time they see it in sales. And interestingly, 57% of the retail winners feel that their merchants don’t get information fast enough to react to differences between forecast v/s sales whereas only 33% of the laggards share a similar view

Similarly, talking about how does BI help overcome business challenges, 74% of the respondents felt BI helped them improve promotion effectiveness. 73% said that BI helped them respond better and faster to changes in customer demand. 43% of the respondents feel that the Brick and Mortar selling channel gains the most for a BI solution, 37% feel that all channels gain from a BI solution and given that e-commerce and mobility are relatively new channels of sale – they tend to gain 14 and 6% respectively.

Have a look at the video to know more about these retail challenges and ways to solve them.

iVend Analytics is a set of pre-packaged, shrink wrapped Business Intelligence dashboards specifically for retailers. iVend Analytics integrates seamlessly into iVend Retail which is a complete Retail Management Suite and is being used by diverse retailers ranging from Electronic Stores, Apparel Retailers, Footwear, specialty, departmental stores and many more.

One of questions that we are asked many a times is – what is the minimum threshold for a retailer to embrace a BI solution? Is the decision based number of stores, transactional volume, or a completely different parameter. Honestly, there is no fixed equation which would determine whether a retailer is BI ready or not. However if a retailer’s data is Diverse, Dynamic, Dense or any one of these, the retailer is BI ready.

It is more than obvious that BI has now become an essential tool – in an integrated retail environment – for a retailer to be successful.

Retail management software allows for greater efficiency- meaning increased revenues. The right software will not just maintain your current revenue. Your businesses will experience growth both online and off if you take full advantage of the business technology available today.

Using retail business software to build and manage your e-commerce, optimize your POS, offer loyalty incentives, and streamline your sales process pays off not only in the short-term. As your customer base grows alongside the retention rate of your existing customers, this software is key to long-term growth and profitability. Here are five ways you can use business software to propel your company forward:

1. Take advantage of the tools offered by fully integrated retail business software

• Use business software to manage not only retail stores, but warehouses and websites. This will save you both time and money.

• Use the reports generated by retail business software when making business decisions; they provide the most accurate picture of your retail sales.

• Automatically adjust your inventory numbers electronically.

• Enhance your customer experience. By allowing your customers to create online accounts, not only do you gain online sales- you also have increased access to your customers. Many retailers boost sales through online newsletters, exclusive discounts, and loyalty programs.

2. Engage your customers at POS
Make the sales process both easier and more engaging for customers. In addition to streamlining the physical sales process, software management systems gather POS data that’s mutually beneficial to merchants and customers. Customers appreciate access to their purchasing history, and business owners glean invaluable information from POS data collected. This software allows you more touch points at which to further promote sales: on receipts, via email and/or individual customer accounts. Use retail business software to recognize repeat customers so they feel appreciated. And whether you deal in products or services, the POS analytics provided by retail business software gives you the numbers with which to analyze your customer’s buying habits and judge the success of your sales process.

3. Create and maintain effective loyalty systems 
Follow the successful business trend of building loyalty reward programs. Those who buy from you often should be rewarded for doing so. Loyalty programs offer to develop relationships with the customers by offering two benefits, Financial benefits that increase the customer’s satisfaction & Social benefits that increase the retailer’s social experience with the customer. This can be done through loyalty cards, online accounts, clubs, coupons or discount incentives.

4. Become a multi-channel retailer 
In the wake of the economic recession, sales have generally fallen- unless, that is, you’re looking at online sales. Online retailers have actually been enjoying a sales increase since 2008. Although brick-and-mortar stores have not reported much growth at all, companies who sell online are growing at a steady rate. With an average increase in online sales of 19%, multi-channel retailers nationwide now have incentive to reallocate their budget toward e-marketing.

 5. Track the retail moves with Business Intelligence
More and more consumers are using the Internet to investigate products they later purchase at brick-and-mortar stores. Retail analytics in integrated retail software will give you a picture of your consumer base, their purchasing habits, and the overlap between their online activity and their purchases in-store.

By now you have an idea of the importance of fully integrated retail business software revenue-boosting resource. Following these five guidelines will ensure that your business becomes part of the retail sector that’s booming-not declining.

These sessions are beneficial for Retail customers using SAP Business One as their backend ERP while running iVend Retail to run their retail enterprise.

The recorded sessions shall take you through an in depth experience from the initial SetUp phase to Rollout for iVend Retail. These comprehensive sessions aim to make attendees an expert in iVend Implementations. The sessions conclude with a discussion on the Blueprint document , the system landscape, accelerated implementation template and post production support.
After completing these sessions, attendees shall be able to take the online exam to pass & certify as “iVend Retail Certified Implementation” consultant. Please contact your local CitiXsys manager to participate in the certification program.

You may click above to start the 15 session playlist or go to our Youtube Playlist page to review each session. There are over 600 minutes (over 10 hours) of recording. So make sure you have your coffee, popcorn and a blanket before you start. Have fun with the training.

iVend Analytics is a set of pre-packaged, shrink wrapped Business Intelligence dashboards which seamlessly plug into iVend Retail. With in-memory processing of iVend Analytics, SAP and/ or iVend users can use Sales, Inventory, Executive, Loyalty or Retail BI applications. Additional applications can be built based on customer requirement.

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, said about e-commerce, “Any company, old or new, that does not see this technology as important as breathing could be on its last breath.” A global meme has swept every market place, transforming it into a virtual one. Retailers which don’t compete in this modem-controlled land are missing out on a universe of potential customers. Today it’s no longer necessary to limit trade to the locales of your brick and mortar stores. The American retailer has the capacity to tap into 44% of the world’s internet users by venturing into the territory of over a million online Asians and 22.1% of the online market by targeting another million living in Europe. These users only form three quarters of the global online population, which serves you a total of 2.2 billion potential customers on a golden platter, salted and spiced with an annual growth rate of just over 500%.
With the world online, your challenge has ballooned drastically and you now need to provide your clientele with a point of sale experience, at both the actual and virtual point of sale that is seamless, loyalty-inspiring and prompt.

The point of sale, at its best, is where customers are transformed into clients. At its worst it’s where loyal clients are permanently lost. Long queues, scanning errors, a POS system that confuses staff and lengthens transaction time all have potential to pound down those profits through vanishing clients. In the universe of e-commerce this caliber of transaction comes instead under the guise of insecure payment structures and forms that are difficult to locate and crawling with bugs. Here, clients click out of your site with the ease and speed of a breath, taking their credit cards with them. The point of sale is where customer service is at its purest because here, clients have no suspicion that service excellence is happening under the mask of an attempt to make a sale. When a retailer excels at the till point, both online and in store, he earns the kind of brownie points that clients don’t easily forget having awarded.
Loyalty programs in retail are now a norm rather than the exception. Another meme has spread gloom over global markets, in the form of a recession, is herding customers’ platinum cards towards the retailers that offer the discounts. Following customer service excellence, the most likely facet to draw repeat business from customers is a loyalty scheme. One that can morph customers into loyalists needs to be relevant to their needs and desires. It also needs to be judged by them as sufficient. Anything less renders a possible gold mine futile. Most loyalty schemes do precisely this by offering rewards that are too small, not well targeted to their markets and unrealistic expiration dates. One that delivers what the client wants is rare and thus deeply appreciated. An impressed customer then becomes what is still one of the most valuable forms of advertising: old fashioned word of mouth. In the planet of e-commerce this brand of publicity will be offered to you in the form of the online review, which inspires more confidence in 97% of consumers than even the most flamboyant sales clerk is capable of. Of course, that review also has a reach of a couple of billion working credit cards.
For the retail CEO, all these channels can be controlled powerfully by an innovative and integrated POS system that manages front and back end business on and off line. iVend systems give you a fluid experience that operates across loyalty programs, POS and e-commerce–exceptionally.

Country : India

Industry : Exclusive Lifestyle Retail

Elvy Lifestyle Private Limited is India’s exclusive lifestyle shopping Catalogue Company. Elvy Lifestyle gives contemporary, exclusive and stylish options to set up a great home and office thereby reinforcing the brand values of uniqueness, exclusivity, convenience, lifestyle, value, international quality and easy shopping.

Elvy launched its first stylish shopping catalogue on 23 March 2006. Elvy’s has a prime network of self-owned showrooms in the National Capital Region – New Delhi and other cities, in addition to a fully functional internet mall, to support the catalogue with its Corporate office located in commercial hub of Gurgaon. Being in business for over six years now, elvy has notched significant achievements by forging strategic alliances and tie ups with major airlines, MNC banks, hospitality partners and restaurants, real estate conglomerates. It has opened up stores in New Delhi & NCR (National Capital Region) and has expanded to different cities. Elvy also runs loyalty programs for its customers across all segments.

Challenge  

Elvy wanted to take advantage of the latest retail technology in order to offer its customers the most efficient and streamlined purchasing experience, with a focus on fast, effective, and efficient service to each customer. In addition, the company needed an Integrated solution that facilitates control on their stores & showrooms across geographic allocations from their centralized hub located at Gurgaon.
Catalogue sales were another area that Elvy aimed to integrate with iVend. elvy is engaged into inflight catalogue sales where, customers demand efficient, convenient and consistent shopping experiences from retailers by catalogue. By using iVend Retail, Elvy could compile all the customer sales data at the warehouse, leading to cost savings while retaining customers. iVend Retail helped elvy manage efficient warehouse & inventory management functions to meet customer expectations to deliver a consistent experience at all Retail touch points. As the demand for the merchandise grew during the festival season, the scalable iVend Retail assisted well in coping with the added demands. More points of sale terminals were added to consolidate the mounting sales & faster order processing to meet the stringent delivery schedules. To support its aggressive expansion plans the solution they chose had to be scalable so that it grows as the company grows.

Some challenges that required immediate attention were-

Solution & Services : iVend Retail Management Suite 

Benefits 

iVend Retail sufficed ElVy’s need of an unified solution that leverages ever customer touch point and connects the entire retail operation—with a goal of knowing, engaging with, and serving their customers better. They no have real time management of stocks at their centralized Gurgaon hub. In addition to the regular sales transactions, using iVend Retail, Store employees can use sales executive points situated in the store to check stock position and other information and create sales orders that are automatically sent to SAP Business One for further processing.

Some immediate benefits that Elvy noticed were-

A modern integrated retail system is an important aspect for any business that wants to protect self and its customers. An integrated retail system allows your business to make quick decisions and provide vital information that could prevent fraud from taking place. With PCI compliance, information of the credit card holder is provided, which if used with your retail system can confirm information presented by a customer as a way of ensuring that they are not a victim to credit card fraud. This will protect your business from a possible suit for failure to confirm details of a fraudster trying to commit fraud.

Point of sale systems (POS), have also come a long way in making a sale transaction easier and faster for both businesses and customers. POS allows you to purchase new stock while also being able to generate a report on the sales made at any one time. Apart from this, they have been able to establish a new form of payment process that does not require physical cash. This payment method is similar to PIC, which allows customers to make purchases without having any money with them. PCI compliance plays an important part in POS interaction with customers as payments made are quick and easy to trace at any time.

Loyalty programs can go a long way to growing any business. More and more customers are likely to show loyalty to your business with the best systems in place. The aim of a loyalty system is to award customers that purchase your products and services frequently and so, it is a very important strategy as it allows loyal customers to be recognized and their efforts awarded. In similarity, PIC compliance ensures that your business continues to reap from the loyalty customers’ show to the business. This is because they feel that their important information is secure and not prone to compromise by fraudsters. Due this sense of security more and more customers will opt to continue doing business with you.

Multi – channels retailing has proved over time to be a very popular module that any business wishing to go into e-commerce could undertake. It revolves around the need to keep track of customers, inventory, products and so much more areas that involve the business. PCI compliance is also aimed at making the multi-channel approach easier for businesses. Multi-channel retailing is a form of business management that allows business leaders to be informed on the progress of their businesses continuously and on a daily basis. This is similar to PCI compliance that helps business owners’ account for the sales made on any one day. Its importance is therefore very vital to your business. Failure to comply with PCI complacencies can lead to lack of knowledge of developing problems facing your business hence making it not to grow like you intend it to.

Finally, PCI compliance is important as it not only prevents your business from facing major fines and penalties, but also allows your business to benefit in numerous ways in ensuring efficiency and that service delivery is your main agenda.

In today’s business world, multichannel retail is becoming the norm. More businesses are branching out into e-commerce or other marketing channels as additions to traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ physical retail locations. That means that new enterprise resource planning or ERP systems are even more important for many of today’s local business operations. Increasingly, it’s not enough just to have a single spreadsheet or data entry system to keep tabs on inventory, customers, products and more. Businesses require a seamlessly integrated Business Management system  to keep business leaders informed and to help them chart a path for future operations and growth.

Integrated Business Management Systems for Multichannel Retail
Comprehensive Business Management systems bring a lot to the table: from the point of service to the “back of the store,” these tools help business owners to get a good idea of what’s going on by offering a bird’s eye view of daily and long-term operations. That means combining different individual tools or suites into a cross channel solution, where sharing data is ultimately important, not just for a manufacturing business, but in retail as well.

POS: Using Multichannel Retail to Monitor Customer Activity
Using a vibrant, intuitive & full featured POS system engages customers. It gets them involved, while taking information about their purchases and history that business leaders can draw on later for additional outreach. This is true whether you’re selling products or services. You want a point of service system that offers customers the ability to get information, and offers the business identifiers for analyzing the customer base. POS data is a two way street, and the setup needs to be appealing to those who access your business on a regular basis.

Loyalty Systems for Multichannel Retail
Another key component of comprehensive Business Management system is the loyalty infrastructure that you use for your return customers. Another modern business principle is that those who continue to patronize your retail locations should benefit from their long-term involvement. For some businesses, this means issuing “store cards” or other coupon strategies. For others, long-term customers also get more information about new changes and new offers. Either way, having a loyalty system as a component of your Integrated Business Management multichannel retail setup will make this part of customer retention more efficient and less labor-intensive.

Multichannel Retail Setups: Multiple Marketing Channels
As mentioned, more physical retail businesses are branching out into the world of online sales. This means they need well-designed e-commerce systems such as shopping carts, new methods of merchant credit card processing, and more. Security is also a major concern for many businesses with an electronic footprint. Look at how available ERP products can seamlessly integrate with your Retail application, to manage your local shop as well as your vendor platform over the World Wide Web.

New Innovations in Retail
New Business Management system tools are offering business leaders much more than what yesterday’s entrepreneurs had in their toolboxes to help them judge the effectiveness of various business strategies, and to handle in-house initiatives with precision. From business intelligence software tools to supply chain management suites-the best modern back end solutions that come inbuilt with integrated management solutions, find out what your business needs and add this kind of capability to your software architecture. Look at what’s available from your Business management Solution vendor and consider how upgrading to a “broad-spectrum” multichannel retail system could propel your business forward in this and future years.

Release Description

This document outlines the enhancements / issues fixed in iPlan version 1.5
iPlan 1.5 is only supported on:

• SAP Business One 8.82, PL04 and above
• SAP Business One 8.81, PL03 and above
• SAP Business One 8.8
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008

Enhancements

• Ability to inactivate an item: With this release, you can now mark an item as inactive for MRP Run, OTB and Forecasting. The system will continue to make stock transfer recommendation for items which have stock on hand.

• Ability to add manual recommendation: With this release, you can manually add additional rows to MRP Recommendations before executing the order recommendations.

• Import planning parameter: With this release, the “Minimum Inventory” information for the item warehouse combination can also be imported.

• Forecasting of new items: With this release, new items can be forecasted based on the sales history of a replacement item.

• Analyze forecast in terms of cost and sale: With this release, apart from quantitative view of forecast, the forecast can additionally be viewed as an amount based on a price list.

• Overriding forecasted data: With this release, you can now override the forecasted data at Item group level which will get applied to all the items in that group.

• Imported historical sales consideration: With this release, the treatment of the imported historical sales data can now be based on any one of the following parameters.

• All – All imported historical sales will be considered while generating the forecast.
• None – The system will not consider any imported historical sales data while generating the forecast.
• Previous – Only those imported historical sales data that are prior to the first transaction of the same item in SAP Business One will be considered while generating the forecast.

• Auto application of distribution rule: With this release, the system can be setup to apply the distribution rule automatically in the MRP recommendations.

Bugs and Defects Fixed

• Plotting of historical graph: Due to an issue in the previous release iPlan considers the historical sales as zero for the month that has not passed yet and therefore the graph plotted for the month shows 0 sales for the month. This has been fixed in this release.

iPlan – Inventory Planning for Business One is a tool that allows organizations to further improve inventory management processes. The enhanced MRP (Material Requirement Planning), OTB (Open to Buy) and Forecasting engines enable companies in Retail, Warehousing & Distribution to have a better control on their inventories resulting in better margins. Forecasting enables predicting sales in the future based on past or legacy data. MRP enables the procurement process per warehouse. OTB ensures optimal spend on inventory as and when required based on forecasted sales.