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Elvy Lifestyle increases topline revenue with iVend Retail
May 16, 2012 By 1 Comment
Company : Elvy Lifestyle
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-
- Inefficient stock monitoring & movement
- Inadequate Customer Information
- Scattered MIS reporting
- Non-integrated financial system
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-
- iVend Retail Management Suite with SAP Business One
- Increased employees’ overall efficiency by eliminating work duplication on disintegrated processes
- Improved cash tracking and stock and replenishment planning
- Achieved faster order processing
- Standardized business processes based on industry best practices
“ CitiXsys has successfully implemented iVend Retail and Elvy is pleased to have a functional experience of integrated Retail at its store. iVend Retail has been a perfect choice for our Retail business, since it leverages Right Technology in the right manner to maximize customer & Inventory service levels ”
Mahender Sharma
COO-
Elvy Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd.
Solution to Retailers PCI compliance concern
May 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance is a set of requirements set up by credit card companies for businesses to have
it in place for any credit card transaction. Such requirements have been put in place to prevent banks, businesses and individuals from credit card fraud which has been rampant and on the rise compromising crucial information of credit card holders.
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.
Emerging Multichannel Retail Trends – How to make Most with Integrated Business Management Solutions…
May 7, 2012 By 1 Comment
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.
iPlan 1.5 released for SAP Business One 8.82, PL04 and above
May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
iPlan
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.
ATP in SAP Business One Vs ATP in Inventory Pro (Available to Promise)
May 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
This video demonstrate the ability of Available to Promise (ATP) functionality in Inventory Pro compared to same in SAP Business One
Using Retail Software To Improve Sales And Productivity
April 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Gone are the days where just a cash register is all that a retail operation needs. Contemporary retail operations not only need the most current and compliant point of sale systems available; retail operations also need integrated retail systems that can increase sales, improve profits, and boost productivity.
Integrated retail software solutions can give your business significant benefits:
- Increased sales through automated up-sell and cross-sell suggestions, quick access to product information and availability, and better points and rewards programs
- Improved profits through better inventory management, suggested sale items and clearance options, and reduced overhead through more efficient staffing
- Boost productivity through better automation and more efficient processes that move the inventory to where it will sell, utilize the latest in mobile and web technologies, and better overall supply chain management
Retail software solutions must meet this increased demand for integrated systems without inhibiting the existing business processes.
As part of increased sales, shopper engagement can be improved through retail software solutions. The more engaged a shopper can become, the better the chances of that shopper increasing the sales transaction, building loyalty, returning for more purchases, and making positive referrals to their friends and family. Imagine your point of sale system with the ability to “recognize” repeat customers, make recommendations of products or accessories to up-sell or cross-sell, or offer special incentives? What if your ecommerce website could also recognize repeat visitors and provide custom offers based on purchase history? All of these techniques can be facilitated through a robust point of sale system that is fully integrated to customer relationship management and other business systems to make the ability to cultivate shopper engagement much easier.
Loyalty programs work to improve customer experiences and to attract new business. With retail software solutions that incorporate loyalty campaigns and programs into their services, a business can easily provide a variety of options for their customers and potential customers in the form of loyalty incentives. Loyalty programs can attract new customers, increase the purchases of existing customers, maintain customer retention and also encourage sales of more profitable items. Integrated retail software solutions can offer loyalty programs that can be customized for a particular store or throughout your entire enterprise.
Multi-channel retailing is an approach that is used by retailers of all sizes. With integrated retail software solutions, your business can coordinate efforts on the retail store level, at the ecommerce website, with mobile marketing, and more. Through an integrated approach, all of your multi-channel retail systems will have visibility to inventory availability, pricing, and customer data in order to make sales quickly and seamlessly. Your customers will be presented with a consistent experience regardless of the channel, and your enterprise will have access to detailed reports that track channel effectiveness.
The retail sector continues to evolve and there are new methods to reach customers, build loyalty, and increase brand awareness and market penetration. Mobile marketing technology and the use of mobile devices as part of the point of sales experience are becoming even more prevalent. Social media continues to prove itself as an effective marketing tool to bring traffic to your website and to your retail doorway. More interactive innovations from television, tablets, iPads, smartphones, and other technologies will bring you closer to your customers in new and exciting ways. Retail software solutions should be prepared to accept these new innovations and utilize them to benefit your business.
From point of sale to website to mobile device and more, integrated retail software solutions can help to build new customers, grow existing customers, and help sales and profits to increase in order to meet your business goals.
Inventory Pro 6.6.5 for SAP Business One 8.82 Released
April 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Release Description
This document outlines the enhancements / bug fixes incorporated in Inventory Pro version 6.6.5.0
Inventory Pro version 6.6.5.0 is only supported on
- SAP Business One 8.8 SP00 PL07 and above
- SAP Business One 8.81 PL05 and above
- SAP Business One 8.82 PL04 and above
Inventory Pro version 6.6.5.0 will not be supported on the following environments:
- SAP Business One 2007
- SAP Business One 2005
- Microsoft SQL Server 2000
Contact CitiXsys support for details on Hardware and Software specifications for Inventory Pro version 6.6.5.0.
You must install Crystal Reports 2008 Runtime with this version of Inventory Pro.
With this version of Inventory Pro you would need to install .Net Framework 4.0
Enhancements
Following features have been added / enhanced in the Inventory Pro version 6.6.5.0:
- Automatic Allocation – A new service has been included in Inventory Pro to automatically allocate item quantities periodically. A new setup screen has been included in the Inventory Pro add-on to configure parameters for Automatic Allocation.
- Label Printing from GRPO screen – A new button has been added to the GRPO screen in SAP Business One to enable the user to print item labels for item quantities received in the GRPO.
- Block user from changing allocation control on Sales Order – A new setting has been provided in the Inventory Pro > Document Setting to prevent the user from changing the allocation control on Sales Order. In this case the default allocation control defined in the Inventory Pro > Document Setting will always apply.
- Inventory Transfer Request – Inventory Transfer Request document included in SAP Business One 8.82 has been added to the Order Management process and RF Transactions. Using the RF Module the user can perform picking transactions against Inventory Transfer Requests and can also post Inventory Transfers based on Inventory Transfer Requests subsequent to the picking process.
- Picking Report for Independent Picking – Printing of Picking Report for Independent Picking has been enabled on the Picking Screen.
- Put-Away Transactions from RF Module – Put-Away transaction from RF Module has been extended for A/R Credit Memo, A/P Invoice, Return and Receipt from Production documents.
- Production Order transactions from RF Module – Issue from Production and Receipt from Production transactions have been incorporated in the RF Module.
- Customizable Report for Stock Take – With this version of Inventory Pro the Stock Take report can be customized. A sample report template has been included in the Sample Reports folder.
- Copy UDF values to Delivery Document – A new setting has been included in the Inventory Pro > Document Settings to enable copying of UDF values from Sales Order to Delivery document.
Issues Fixed
Following issues have been fixed in this release:
- Gross Profit in Marketing Documents – With this version of Inventory Pro the Gross Profit Base Price will be populated appropriately based on the SAP Business One > Document Settings and selected Item UOM.
- Quantity to Move – With this version of Inventory Pro the Quantity to Move column will be set to Zero after the row is moved to selected matrix.
- Service Type Marketing Documents – Due to an issue in the previous version of the Inventory Pro Add-on the system would prompt the user to enable the Unit Price column for Service type marking documents whereas this prompt should only display for Item type documents. This has been fixed in this release.
- Un-do picking for Production Orders – In some rare cases an un-do picking transaction could not be performed for Production Orders which were subsequently updated. This has been fixed in this release.
- Closing Locked Pick Tickets – Due to an issue in the previous version of the Inventory Pro add-on the user was able to close a pick ticket from Order Management screen which was locked by the RF User. This has been fixed in this release.
Inventory Pro from CitiXsys enhances SAP Business One inventory features facilitating the easy management of inventory either paper based or RF. Designed for companies with light transactional inventory volumes that deal with multiple items, Inventory Pro comprises of four modules – Bin Locations, Available to Promise, Multiple Units of Measure and Allocation.
Five ways to make loyal customers
April 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
If you’re selling a product and you want to maintain customer loyalty one of the most effective ways to increase return business is through a loyalty program for your customers. It seems as though everyone has a customer loyalty program nowadays. The scheme may be managed by issuing a key ring, a specific membership card, or simply electronically through a series of continuous marketing email blasts. Loyalty programs are an important tool for todays retailer; here are five (5) key features of an effective loyalty program.
Importance of an integrated retail system
When you’re operating a customer loyalty program your retail systems need to be integrated. That is, every time a valued customer swipes their identification card you need to know as much about them as your loyalty program allows. You need to know who they are, when and what was their last purchase with you, what their personal shopping preferences are, who they dealt with last , and if there are any red flags that require attention. Ideally your customer loyalty program should be tightly integrated with your point of sale solution from the store to head office to provide visibility through the company, including at the executive level.
Shopper experience at the POS
Integration is the key and in keeping with this theory your sales assistants at the store need to be able to engage customers through an effective loyalty program. Capturing your customers attention and making a positive impression is key to making a difference to their shopping experience with you. Simple gestures like referring to your customer by their name, acknowledging their shopping preferences, inviting them to special promotion evenings and a happy birthday greeting on their special day. All simple measures that only a loyalty program can help you effectively implement. Your loyalty program could capture such specific information including keeping track of all purchases made to date and even a wish list of products your customer may be interested in purchasing in the future.
Effective loyalty systems
Your loyalty system needs to offer value to your customer without it being perceived as spam or a vehicle to constantly push your product. An effective loyalty program acknowledges your customer for continued loyalty by giving something in return. Examples of such value added activities may include; special ‘VIP member’ shopping days, special ongoing discounts, advanced notice on upcoming promotional events, store credit offered on their birthday to redeem on any product in store or any other special perks you can offer your customers. Its a partnership that creates a win win for both parties that will achieve the end result, continued customer loyalty.
Multi-channel retailing
Todays customer does not just shop in the same way or same fashion every time they purchase from you. So by embracing multi channel retailing you are able to adapt to todays customer and their shopping preferences. The same can be said about an effective loyalty system in that it has to be flexible enough to capture information on the customer’s preferred shopping experience including keeping track of sales made in store, online or by mail order and providing rewards for purchases made via all channels.
New innovations in retail sector
An effective loyalty program needs to keep up with the latest technology and industry best practices and constantly evolve and respond to such market changes.
One of the biggest pitfalls of some of todays loyalty programs is the overflow of constant information from the retailer to the customer. Customers are often bombarded with too many emails leading to customers unsubscribing altogether from the loyalty scheme. Soon enough retailers find that the loyalty system designed to increase customer loyalty is discouraging repeat business. The famous saying “less is more” reigns very true with an effective loyalty program, too much communication can be perceived as intrusive and therefore counter productive. As a retailer your customer loyalty program should embrace the above five (5) key points for effective loyalty management and a positive experience for your customer.
Implementing iVend Retail Got Easy with- A Successful Webinar Series
April 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment
iVend Implementation Webinar series successfully concluded earlier on Friday (20/04/12).
The webinars were a resounding success with participation levels of over 90%. Spread over 5 sessions of 3 hours each, the series covered all the finer details of iVend Retail Implementation and gave the participants a complete view of the application set. Though scheduled for the APAC region, the webinar was attended by participants as west as Mexico.
The sessions ranged from installation & configuration to suggestions on how best to implement iVend Retail in different business scenarios. The sessions were extremely informative and gave the implementation consultants an opportunity to discuss implementation related challenges in a LIVE session.
The format of the webinars was such that the participants could interact with the organizer and panelists during the breaks between the sessions. The participants also interacted with a team of panelists on http://forum.citixsys.com to get detailed explanations to their queries.
Not only were the features of iVend Retail discussed at length, the sessions also covered implementation scenarios where iVend Retail is being implemented in an already implemented SAP Business One OR is being implemented together. Also covered in the sessions were topics on how best to implement iVend Loyalty and other CitiXsys Line of Integrated Retail Solutions along with iVend Retail.
The last session covered the accelerated implementation templates and other artifacts required in iVend Retail implementation. Emphasis was given to the process of handover from implementation to support so that the support team is fully aware of the application landscape when extending support to the customer.
All the participants are now trained to undertake the implementation certification test on, Successful candidates will be awarded a framed certificate valid for 2 years.
For the benefit of the partners who could not join the webinars due to differences in time zones, the recordings of these webinars will be uploaded on CitiXsys website in the next few days. We will keep you informed on when the recordings will be available.
We once again thank the participants and the organizations they represent for making this a great success. We leave you with a promise to conduct these and such sessions more often in the coming future.
