JJB Sports, the UK's leading sports goods retailer, has
completed a £500,000 upgrade to its
business intelligence and merchandise management system,
cutting reporting times by half.
The upgrade to the
Torex system includes an new IT infrastructure that consists of
HP Itanium servers, connected to an existing EMC storage area
network, and an
Oracle 10g database.
"Access to accurate and timely information on merchandise sales,
stock levels and store performance is crucial. We are already
seeing performance improvements of 25% to 50% from moving to the
new platform. This allows us to respond quicker to changing
customer needs," said Mark Macaulay, JJB Sports' IT director.
News of the deal follows difficult times for both firms. Torex
was rescued by investment firm Cerberus a year ago, while JJB has
been through a change of management followed by tough trading
conditions because of England's failure to qualify for the European
football championships.
Doug Hargrove, Torex's chief marketing officer, said the deal
was a mark of faith in Torex. "In 2007 JJB was not buying in 2008
it is," he said.