Imtiaz Supermarket goes live on iVend Retail

COMPANY : Imtiaz Supermarket

COUNTRY : Pakistan

INDUSTRY : Retail – Supermarket

CitiXsys Partner : Abacus Consulting

Imtiaz, a venture of Mr. Hakim Khan Abbasi began operations in the year 1955. His primeval idea was to kick off a small store which could provide general items of daily use to their customers. Over the years as business grew, Mr. Imtiaz Hussain envisioned of making Imtiaz Super Store, a store which would help make peoples life better. He had a vision to serve people by helping them save money in their day today shopping; a vision to strive and conquer their customer’s with love. Currently the Supermarket has three Stores, five warehouses and a packaging unit and this elaborate network is controlled from the Head office located at Karachi, Pakistan. Keeping pace with growth in Retail Sector in Pakistan, company is about to inaugurate a new Supermarket that be biggest one among all three existing super Markets.

Challenge

In recent years, Imtiaz Group has achieved growth through an aggressive strategy for opening new stores. While Supermarket sales are a major driver for this strategy, the company’s warehouses had become burdened by poor inventory visibility and control and limited data that compromised its decision making.

As an expanding business they required a modern IT platform that could consolidate their Retail and warehousing operations and foster the planned pace of growth.

  • No centralized access to inventory information & availability of proper sales data
  • Inefficient stock monitoring & movement
  • High transaction time at point of sale and system constraint to handle high footfall at store
  • Data existed in siloes at each branch & lead inaccurate inventory calculation
  • Unmanageable data consolidation & audits

Solution :

iVend Retail Management Suite with SAP Business One

Benefits:

  • iVend Retail was able to enhance key retail transaction performance at store & increased overall employee efficiency
  • Synchronized data transfers between Stores & enterprise ensured accuracy across Retail chain
  • Allowed to measure sales numbers better and track inventory stock levels efficiently
  • Easy identification of slow moving inventories for improved purchasing decision making
“The benefits of our new Retail management system are splendid. We have full control on what is being purchased, what is being sold, and what is available in the inventory. Now we have obtained a fairly transparent view of store operations through process integration”
Waqas Hanif,
Imtiaz Supermarket

iVOO Store goes live on iVend Retail

IVOO StoreIVOO StoreIVOO Store

iVOO – The flagship store of  Siragon offers a unique blend of innovation and technology together spread of thousands of sq yards of Store space with 30 point of Sales at Venezuela. The store had a grand opening on 28th September 2012 with a record footfall of about 7000 people on the very first day. The vast store which has hundreds of electronic models on display is bigger than an average Mall, and runs on iVend Retail with SAP Business All-In-One.

Siragon was born, a Venezuelan brand and in 10 years is ranked second in the market share in Venezuela and continues to reap success internationally. Since its launch, Siragon has positively influenced the market with attractive models from both standpoints aesthetics and technology.

The iVOO store that sells everything electronic, not only showcases Siragon’s product range but also is a storehouse of all leading Global electronics brands like Philips, Apple etc. iVend Retail is configured across all thirty registers in the store and customers are enjoying great in-store retail shopping experience with fast checkout at the store.

iVend Retail has provided operational efficiency through integration of business processes & easy  visibility of business data. A defined and structured retail process with easy to use front-end has enabled iVOO staff handle huge footfalls and manage transactions with ease.

ivoo

Some of the business benefits that iVOO has started accruing include:

  • Efficient information sharing between head office and stores
  • Store management, maximizing sales with integrated and automated processes
  • Real time sales and stock level information
  • Increased business agility with proactive service

Siragon is a young company which has the infrastructure, design and innovation to reach the future objectives of the brand and position itself as a creator of solutions in electronics industry with a strong focus on providing answer to regional needs in the Latin American market. As Siragon is betting in the economy of scale and it is continuously working on expanding the brand to other markets in emerging countries.

 

iVend Retail with SAP Business One Implementation series

CitiXsys Australia conducted a 5 day iVend Implementation webinar series from April 16th to 20th 2012 for CitiXsys partners and customers in South East Asia. The sessions were 3 hours each day with 2 breaks in between. In total there were 15 sessions of 1 hours each. The sessions were recorded, refurbished by our creative team, packed within 30-50 minutes each and made available below and also at http://www.youtube.com/citixsys/. Learn how to implement iVend Retail with SAP Business One in 5 Days, 3 session session per day of 30-50 minutes each. Implementation training on iVend Retail for SAP Business One consultants and iVend Retail consultants.

NOTE: These training sessions are only for iVend Retail with SAP Business One and not for other ERPs. Participants looking for iVend with SAP Retail, R/3 systems, other ERPs are requested to stay tuned at our youtube channel and blogs. If you need such information/ training at an earliest, please contact your nearest CitiXsys office.

Video 1 – Standard iVend Deployment Architecture

In this video, the standard iVend deployment architecture is discussed along with the variations in deployment that are supported by iVend. It goes on further to discuss the iVend Add-on installation and initial configuration. IVend add-on configuration also includes Retail Store setup within SAP Business One. The session concludes by discussing the iVend Integration and Replication services configuration.

Video 2 – Setting up iVend Retail & Configuration Requirements

This video demonstrates the configuration requirements before starting to use iVend Enterprise Management console for the first time. The video also demonstrates setting up the Retail store along with defining transaction number series within the management console. It also explains the configuration and use of Retail profile within iVend, highlighting various attributes available within Retail Profile. The video also explains defining iVend POS and mapping Hardware and Print Profile to the POS. The video concludes by demonstrating the employee and user creation along with their rights and profile assignment.

Video 3 – Payment Types & EOD process

This video demonstrates the various supported Payment types, including Gift Certificates and Store Credit (Refund Voucher) and their configuration within iVend and various attributes that can be configured for the payment types. It goes on further explaining the Master till setup and till creation functionality along with its usage on the iVend POS. The video concludes by demonstrating the EOD process.

Video 4 – Start of day process & Till usage

This video demonstrates the Start of day process and usage of Till on the POS. This is followed by explanation of POS transaction screen and carrying out basic sales transaction at the POS using Credit Card and viewing the sample receipt on the receipt simulator. It briefly explains the Product and Customer search screen along with the relevance of Sale and Item edit functionalities.

Video 5 – Sale Refund, Layby, Kitting

This video demonstrates the Sale refund functionality within iVend POS and issuing a Refund Voucher. Sales order capturing and booking advance payment followed by delivery (Fulfilment) is also demonstrated in this video. Generation of Sales Quotation and converting it into an order or cancellation is also demonstrated here along with the detailed LayBy functionality usage with multiple instalments. Cash Out, Expense capturing and manager override and multiple users on the same POS. This is concluded by demonstration of Kitting functionality.

Video 6 – SAP defined special prices, iVend Upsell, Alternate Product and Alternate UPC code (Barcode)

This video demonstrates the usage of SAP defined special prices within iVend POS along with iVend Promotions. It also demonstrates the iVend Upsell, Alternate Product and Alternate UPC code (Barcode) functionality. The session concludes by demonstrating the End of Day functionality.

Video 7 – New Store setup in SAP and iVend

The video starts with demonstrating the detailed steps for new store setup within SAP Business One and configuring the same within iVend Enterprise Management Console. The video goes further to demonstrate the data export and import functionality available within iVend Management Console.

Video 8 – Troubleshooting tips in iVend Integration or Replication issues

This video discusses various troubleshooting tips to address any iVend Integration or Replication issues encountered during day to day processing. The video demonstrates the usage of Integration and Replication Monitor along with Integration Failure Log window. It also demonstrates how to replace POS machines or store servers including SAP Business One server changeover as well as recovery from a Store Database crash.

Video 9 – Inventory Transactions, PO, GRPO, Stock Transfer & Receipt

This video demonstrates the Inventory Transactions from within iVend Management console by the stores. The transactions include Purchase Order and GRPO creation, stock transfer and stock receipts along with stock requisition. It also covers Goods issue and receipt followed by Stock take functionality. It also demonstrates the out of the box Item Label and Shelf Label report and other reports along with the use of Query Generator feature. The video also demonstrates the Report Manager feature in order to customise or create new reports in iVend.

Video 10 – H/w and S/w specification

This video discusses the iVend implementation process. Starting with the H/w and S/w specification documentation, it goes on with the discussion of recommended steps to be followed while implementing iVend at a client site.

Video 11 – License Manager & key iVend functionality

This video discusses key concepts required for effective learning of iVend functionality and the implementation process. It demonstrates the process of activating a license using Citixsys license manager. The video discusses the day to day useful processes like Day End or Day start, checking gift certificate balance, fulfilment types etc.

Video 12 – iVend Loyalty module, points accumulation

This video demonstrates and discusses various features available with the iVend Loyalty module. It also demonstrates how the loyalty process can be configured. It also demonstrates how the points accumulation can be defined within the loyalty module and its mapping against individual product or group of products.

Video 13 – iVend Accelerated Implementation Plan

This video demonstrates the recommended iVend implementation Project Plan and Blue Print definition and use of iVend Accelerated Implementation Plan. The video discusses, in detail, the iVend implementation Plan and various tasks and stages involved therein.

Video 14 – Implementation architecture, prerequisites & pitfalls

Please view Video 13 before this one. This video concludes the iVend implementation plan discussion started in the Video 13 and also discusses various pitfalls that the implementation team may encounter. It goes further with the discussion of implementation architecture and the prerequisites for a successful iVend implementation.

Video 15 – How to capture and map various customer requirements

This video discusses the iVend Accelerated Implementation Plan document, how to capture and map various clients requirements for iVend. Capturing client environment details, client implementation landscape and detailed iVend configuration details for initialisation are other details that are captured as part of this document.

Implementing iVend Retail Got Easy with- A Successful Webinar Series

 

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.