Jevern Partridge is the main force behind Ridge Solutions Limited. His most recent retail experience has been working for the Arcadia Group plc. The projects undertaken included managing the conversion of the Arcadia stores in the UK and Southern Ireland in readiness for the Euro in January 2002. A summary of the projects he undertook for them is given below.
Arcadia Group plc
Business2Business - When Arcadia Group purchased the Sears brands of Wallis, Warehouse and Miss Selfridge, those stores operating on their own were upgraded to the Arcadia standard Electronic Point of Sale system. However, sales for concessions within Debenhams still had to be scanned through the Debenhams till and then through the Arcadia till. This was time consuming for the operator, provided an extra till at the cash desk that they didn't want and was inaccurate because not all tags were scanned at the same till.
Working in conjunction with Debenhams we established standard interfaces to send item prices to Debenhams from the main supply chain system. Having loaded up the prices on the Debenhams tills, it was then possible to retrieve the detailed sales data from Debenhams automatically, using the internet as a transfer mechanism.
This provided sales data for marketing, accounts and the data warehouse, and improved store replenishment efficiencies within the supply chain, to drive increased sales.
Euro Conversion - This project had one primary aim, to make sure that all stores were trading normally on the first day they opened after the Euro went live. This covered 250 Republic of Ireland and UK flagship stores. In just six months, we managed the following tasks:
- Provided an initial impact analysis to establish what systems would be effected
- Documented the requirements for the development team to work to.
- Managed the installation of training centres in the Republic of Ireland to allow front line staff to be trained on new procedures before the Christmas rush and the Euro went live
- Directing the systems helpdesk to ensure that they understood the procedures stores had to complete during the changeover
- Liaised with the operations team at head office to ensure that manual and computerised procedures kept in sync
- Liaised with the central accounting centre to ensure that financial controls were maintained during and after the cutover
Not one store failed to upgrade to the new Euro system and this was achieved without any engineers attending site. All stores traded without loss of business over the cutover period.
Data Integrity Improvement - Christmas is traditionally the busiest time of year for retailers and when the number of stores failing to send data each night started to increase, this needed to be stopped. We evaluated the reasons for sales data not arriving at head office and worked with the development team to design a solution to change the order in which data was retrieved. This was quickly implemented and reduced problems by 30% at a key time of the year, and ensured that stock was replenished efficiently in stores.
Supply Chain Solution - Previously stores had been sent a best guess of how many items would be coming in their next delivery from the distribution centre. This was often completely inaccurate and was rarely used by stores. This meant that they were often ill prepared for large (or small) deliveries, and also didn't know what items would arrive in the delivery.
Working in partnership with the supply chain management system, we developed an interface to allow detailed delivery information to be sent to stores before they received the delivery. This allowed stores to see what was due to be delivered, and also allowed them to prepare the shop floor in readiness for the delivery. Where stores could see that they were receiving a delivery of trousers, they could clear this shelf in readiness for the delivery. This helped to speed up the arrival of the new stock onto the shop floor which helped to increase sales and improve customer service.
Where deliveries included customer orders, stores were able to call the customer the day before and let them know the delivery was due in the next day. This improved customer service and increased the chance of making the sale.
In Store System Upgrade - As part of the overall upgrade of the in store solution, we managed the bespoke development of a new stock system. This allowed stores to transfer stock between each other for customer orders, and to ensure that stock was fully utilised.
Stores were also given the ability to check current and future prices on a hand held computer by scanning the bar code. This allowed huge time savings when marking down good for sales and promotions.
Arcadia's view of Jevern's work is given below:
"Jevern's commitment and professionalism on the Euro project was the key to it's success. With regular structured updates, all areas of the project were kept up to date, ensuring that important issues were not overlooked."
Douglas O'Connor, Euro Programme Manager, The Arcadia Group.
