A growing specialty retailer had outpaced the capabilities of its’ home-grown retail solutions. The Company had added new product lines and services over the years and its’ current systems could not keep pace with the requirements. After performing an assessment to analyze “build versus buy” options, they came to the conclusion that a “buy” option would not fit their needs. The vision was to have one system that would support all the varied product sales, loan servicing, and regulatory requirements.
Impact
This was a critical project as it touched almost every aspect of the client’s operation. The Company had started off as a pawn shop, then had moved into product retail sales which grew to over 50 percent of their revenue. They then added gun sales which brought another element of complexity. An initial architectural assessment determined that a centralized retail management application would enhance efficiencies and drive out processing complexities. The technology stack associated with this project was Microsoft .NET, C#, and SQL server.
Solution
The central retail module acted as the nerve center supporting both headquarters and store operations. The client had a very clear vision of their business model and how it was to be distributed across the store footprint. This included the processes to standardize policies, controls, and business rules, while at the same time providing the flexibility for store associates to address real-time customer expectations. Enhancing the customer experience by providing full visibility to customer data and allocating sales across stores were also critical functions. As the Company was growing, new store setup was a key function. The application enabled the various functions to set up a new store image with profiles, store configuration, layout, and arrangement of different departments. Other key decisions needed to be made, such as deciding if their store needed a gun department or not, and training modules. The image could then be provisioned at the point training and rollout was to begin.
Result
The Client was able to re-define and transform their retail processes. The customer experience and the efficiency of the store associates were significantly improved. In addition, they were able to refresh their technology infrastructure, standardize policies and business rules, and introduce new analytic – driven processes. They were now able to consolidate multiple applications into a single user application experience creating leverage to scale the business.