Connecting Retail Systems
Access to real time data is imperative to ensuring the timely ordering, production and delivery of stock. It is also necessary for generating informative customer centric reporting. Ensuring systems are integrated and can pass data between them, both within the organisation and throughout the supply chain, is the cornerstone of delivering this business-critical information.
Our experiences suggest that the range of systems used in the retail industry is broader than in any other sector. Systems include contemporary point of sale (EPOS), customer relationship management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. Together with legacy production planning systems and standalone logistics applications is it any wonder that so many businesses have issues with managing integration and the fast and efficient movement of data?
As well as dealing with the intricacies of multiple operating platforms, rekeying data and disparate systems, the digital transformation revolution is creating added pressure for the retail sector. Top tier customers and manufacturers are demanding digital automation of the supply chain. Consequently the ability to accept and transmit data in specific formats can be a prerequisite to securing and retaining high value, profitable contracts.
Competing Priorities
The competing priorities of IT and supply chain automation often lead to a host of new issues including:
- Manual intervention
- Rekeying of data
- Data entry errors
- Duplication of data
- Slower processes and response times
- Poor customer service
- Lack of visibility across the operation
Not every business has the time, infrastructure or budget to replace business-critical applications with a single enterprise wide software solution. This is where HULFT can help.
