Virgin Retail has deployed Microstrategy business
intelligence software connected to its 15-year-old JDA MMS
merchandising system to plan product purchasing at store
level.
The deployment has allowed it to increase sales and lower the
amount of capital tied up in stock, said IT director Tony
Johnson.
“With store-specific ranging, a lot of the benefit comes from
not tying up your cash in product that is not going to sell, and it
allows us better control of our stock,” he said.
Virgin Retail started using store-specific ranging – also known
as assortment planning – for music products six months ago. It will
use the software for DVDs from July.
Assortment planning makes use of a SQL Server datawarehouse and
a business intelligence platform from Microstrategy that Virgin
implemented last September.
The assortment planning feature was developed as an extension of
the company’s established merchandising system, the Epos-Linked
Virgin Information System (Elvis), which uses the information in
Microstrategy to produce assortment plans for each store. A
separate application from software supplier Eqos compels the
retailer’s buyers to follow standardised processes when dealing
with suppliers.
Virgin Megastores deal with an average of 120 suppliers a week,
and Virgin Retail expects to save a minimum of £1.15m a year by
using the Eqos system to reduce charging errors and to ensure that
discounts are set at the correct level.
Virgin Retail’s merchandising system, the most important IT
system for any large retailer, is a 15-year-old implementation of
JDA MMS that has been customised internally. Johnson said, “We have
an internal team that has bespoke developed the hell out of
it.”