Expert – Intelligent software for retail giant
Company background
Expert is one of Sweden's largest retail chains in home electronics. The company has 235 shops throughout the country that carry a wide assortment of consumer goods and home electronics.
Expert's product portfolio of close to 80,000 products ranges from cameras and photo equipment to TVs and mobile phones. New products are being added all the time.
Expert employs some 1,100 people throughout Sweden and has an annual turnover of EUR 319m.
Business issues
The market for consumer goods and home electronics is subject to constant change. Product life cycles are getting shorter and shorter. Products are becoming more digital and thus more complex. Increased complexity means that customers require knowledgeable advice and outstanding after-sales service.
Each Expert store used to have its own IT system, many of them homemade.
The stores were under tremendous pressure to process information. The amount of information that needed to be acted upon was voluminous, with a steady stream of email, post, faxes and telephone calls from management and suppliers.
Even though a typical shop in the Expert chain has the resources of from 3.5 to 4 years' worth of man-hours, laborious but vital administrative duties left little Time to concentrate on customers.
The information needed to be better channelled and the handling routines in place required streamlining.
Another necessity was an easy-to-use graphical interface, as the people working in the shops simply did not have the time to learn a new IT system.
Expert needed a standardized IT solution to facilitate information flow, thereby freeing up employee time from administrative tasks to concentrate on improving customer service.
Solution and capabilities
Today Expert is using IBS' supply chain management software, IBS ENTERPRISE, for its wholesale, distribution and finance.
Together with IBS's new Virtual Enterprise retail software, the solution will enable Expert to gain full control of its supply chain, from suppliers to customers. The new software is integrating the operations of Expert's chain stores, thus allowing for the coordination of sales, procurement and logistics.
Furthermore, Expert will implement IBS' award-winning Business Intelligence solution to facilitate the distribution of goods between shops.
We project IT savings of 15-20 percent over the next five years, while getting the added bonus of improved technology for the entire group.
Hans Nöjd
IT Director
Expert
Solution and capabilities
IBS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE is a smart tool for accessing, transforming, cleaning and centrally storing data from multiple sources, from which it can be analysed, saved or exported to standardized formats.
Easy-to-use functionality delivers real facts, with tools that are designed to support any employee in the company. This means accurate, relevant and efficient support for business decisions throughout the entire organization.
The gathered and stored centralized data, together with the analysis components of the Business Intelligence solution, offer a powerful tool for decision-making support, both for individual shops and central management.
In addition to analyzing Expert's internal data, IBS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE can be used for importing external data into the data warehouse. Expert will be able to gather competitor figures and compare their numbers with its own performance. This will allow the company to investigate other trading details and determine how it is faring.
IBS' business intelligence solution is based on readily available Microsoft components. This means savings for both IBS' development and Expert's implementation as well as an easy-to-use graphical user-interface for the end-users.
Benefits and value
Expert's investment in IBS software for its 235 retail outlets will save time for shop employees, as well as deliver valuable business intelligence on both a shop and companywide level.
The new IT solution will free up two hours per day for each Expert shop employee. This time can be invested in sorely-needed customer contact. The company plans to open a call center to help its stores answer customer questions.
The different customer databases will be linked together using IBS VIRTUAL ENTERPRISE, allowing Expert to become a true expert in customer service.
IBS VIRTUAL ENTERPRISE will speed up Expert's processes, reduce costs and further improve the company's customer service levels. The software permits Expert to coordinate and improve efficiency in its retail stores, while enabling it to centrally handle the stores' routines for Inventory Management, procurement follow-up and item structure.
IBS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE will make it possible for Expert to make sense of data and drill down through the information structure. Operational statistics and stock availability in the central warehouse and in individual stores will be quick and easy to determine. With these new systems, central inventory functions can become more efficient, as can financial flows and profitability follow-up. Stock levels in retail stores and in the central warehouse can be reduced, resulting in significant savings in inventory costs.
Expert estimates that it will save 15-20 percent in IT costs over the next five years thanks to IBS' business software.
Contact IBS for more information. »
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