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Business Overview for Retail & Hospitality – 1Microsoft Enterprise Collaboration Enabling the next generation of retail innovation

Microsoft Enterprise Collaboration Business Overview for Retail & Hospitality

Microsoft Enterprise Collaboration Business Overview for Retail & Hospitality

White PaperNovember 2005

Microsoft Enterprise Collaboration – 2

Summary It’s a given that successful collaboration is essential to any well functioning company, and that information technology has become a key enabler in achieving this status. Retail and hospitality companies are increasingly recognising the importance of collaboration internally and externally with suppliers and trading partners, as a means of creating efficiencies, empowering employees, and gaining competitive advantage.

This paper shows why such collaboration can be of value — and how retail and hospitality organisations can enhance their current communication and collaboration capabilities, using technology that is available, and in many cases already installed in their enterprises today.

Microsoft Smarter Retailing Enabling the next generation of retail innovation


Trends In Retail Collaboration Sustained success in retail and hospitality relies on an effective, simple strategy that can be communicated to all stores and employees and implemented in a consistent way. Retailers that can create a consistent quality of brand and customer experience across all stores or outlets and all channels, regardless of time of day or location, are the ones most likely to attract new customers and retain their existing customers. The pace of change in the retail sector makes speed to market and close collaboration between and within retail departments vital to improve profitability and reduce costs.

Traditionally, retail and hospitality companies have communicated internally face-to-face and over the phone or by using the post, fax, and e-mail. Currently, although still reliant on paper based, manual processes, many companies are starting to experiment with electronic collaboration products on a departmental basis, in response to specific needs. Eventually, retail and hospitality companies will see these tools proliferating across the organisation and will need to establish enterprise wide standards and strategies in order to avoid a lack of interoperability and duplicated functionality. Any successful collaboration strategy needs to keep pace with the rapid, unpredictable changes that are part and parcel of the retail and hospitality industries.

Although each sector of the retail industry poses special communication and collaboration challenges, virtually all companies face some issue. Forrester Research defines four broad phases of collaboration, and notes that the majority of global 2,000 companies are still in phases two and three; with only a handful achieving the benefits of phase four.

Forrester recommends that companies move as quickly as possible through phases one, two, and three to gain the efficiencies and competitive advantages of phase four — lower costs, ease of management and administration, and the highest level of flexibility. Those reaching phase four are perceived to be the most agile in their ability to respond to changing business needs. Improvements in store productivity and customer service are the main benefits of better retail collaboration.

Forrester’s report also notes that technology is only one element in developing a collaboration strategy. Within an organisation, addressing behavioural trends is also crucial, because many employees resist sharing their knowledge with e-mail as a primary collaboration tool and have few incentives to change such behaviour. In addition, senior management support for any collaboration strategy is critical to its success

Collaboration Strategy

Phase 1Traditional

Phase 2Experimentation

Phase 3Proliferation

Phase 4Enterprise Strategyand standardisation

1997 2007> Majority of Global 2,000 companies today <

• Face to face

• Phone

• E-Mail

• Point product

• Departmental basis

• Prompted by specific user needs

• Tools in use on widespread basis

• Lack of interoperability

• Duplicate functionality

• Enterprise strategy in place

• Standardisation on enterprise collaboration platform

Forrester’s four phases, outlined in “Stop Experimenting and Develop a Collaboration Strategy”, by Erica Rugullies, February 2004


A Roadmap to Enhancing Communication and Collaboration Throughout the Retail and Hospitality Enterprise


Key DriversSeveral business and societal trends are increasing complexity in the retail industry. As complexity grows so the need emerges for clear communication and improved collaboration. The key drivers are:

• Store associates are currently bombarded with paperwork and administration and need to free up time to spend with customers, improving service, and increasing sales.

• When market conditions change or new strategies are implemented a mechanism is required to ensure all retail employees receive relevant information quickly and easily.

• Product life cycles are shorter than ever before. It is essential that retailers and their suppliers work together to develop, allocate, and replenish products quickly and efficiently to gain maximum revenue from a short sales period.

• Retailers are developing closer relationships and partnerships with fewer key suppliers and need to be able to share and exchange information with them easily and securely.

• Many large retail and hospitality projects, such as store, pub, restaurant, or hotel openings and refurbishments involve a number of different departments in a company working together. To reduce the time needed to complete these projects, a more effective collaborative approach is needed.

Retail and Hospitality ChallengesThese problems are exacerbated in environments which suffer from particularly high employee turnover. SkillsMart Retail estimates that employee turnover is over 60 per cent a year for most European retailers. Companies cannot rely on a store associate’s personal knowledge to perform tasks correctly or make optimal business decisions; because it is unlikely that individual has held or will be holding the same job for an extended period.

In addition, many retailers and hospitality companies are still managing their businesses with collaboration tools from the mid-1990s or earlier. Fax, post, courier, and telephone are still amongst the most common means of communication between stores and their head offices. E-mail and portal technologies are still in their infancy as true tools for collaboration.

The key challenges for head offices communicating with their stores are:

• Vast quantities of instructions and directives going to stores from various head office departments, often in an un-coordinated way.

• Much of the communication is irrelevant for the store’s grade, type, or product range.

• Huge inconsistency in local execution of central strategy.

• Difficulty in checking compliance with head office initiatives.

Within the retail or hospitality head office there are similar challenges. Many standard retail processes rely on inter-departmental collaboration, such as new openings, refurbishments, promotions planning, set-up and execution, and product recalls.“We were looking for a system that would give us

an overall picture of the chain and show us details

such as the scope of sales, turnover, inventory as

well as information regarding our customer club.

We needed the ability to provide details drilled

down to branch level, departments, and even

individual products, so that each manager or

supplier could see just the information relevant

to him or her.”

Yitzhak Shafer, CIO, Supersol, Israel


Microsoft Enterprise Collaboration – 5Microsoft Smarter Retailing Enabling the next generation of retail innovation

Microsoft Collaborative Solutions Within a retail organisation there are a number of areas where collaboration will bring about increased productivity and customer service. These are:

• Head Office to Supplier Collaboration Allowing suppliers access to appropriate, pre-determined information that can help speed up replenishment, and anticipate stock-outs, with significant resultant benefits. This data could include sharing of sales data, sales forecasts, and production information, as well as exchanging of documents such as purchase orders, Advance Shipment Notifications (ASNs), invoices, and credit notes. Collaborative product development and fast fashion or speed sourcing projects could also be facilitated using supplier portals.

• Inter-departmental Collaboration This involves helping different teams within the retailer’s head office work on joint projects together. These would include projects like new store openings, store refurbishments, promotions, marketing, and branding. Workflow management tools form a key part of the solution, enabling project managers to reduce the time needed to carry out critical projects.

• Head Office and Store Collaboration Stores can access relevant information, directories, training, and store operations procedures. The type of information accessed could include compliance and directives associated with merchandising, special offers, promotions, company news updates, access to key performance indicators, and workload and task management tools.

A self-service portal could provide access to corporate applications and requires authentication of identity for each individual. Accessibility is seamless, so users would not necessarily be aware they are accessing multiple applications. Access can be via a fixed desk top, an EPOS device, or a mobile device such as a PDA. Typical applications that might be accessed include human resources applications for leave requests, pension information, merchandise management to check stock information, expected deliveries, space planning, staff scheduling, time and attendance, logistics, and staff training packages that record results and report on them.

The store managers’ and district managers’ workbench allows access to and interpretation of multiple data sets for further action and response. The store, area, or district manager could drill down into performance data and make decisions quickly and effectively — and update other systems accordingly.

Microsoft collaboration solutions make use of tools and products that many retailers may already have in place, so leveraging existing investments and systems that employees are already familiar with. Also, Microsoft has one platform that will service the supplier, stores, and head office. Where a cross-company strategy for collaboration is not adopted, retailers may be in danger of leveraging different platforms — thereby inhibiting collaboration, rather than fostering it.

Stores• Role based access to sales data,

inventory

• Corporate HR information

• Defined workflow and feedback

• Store communication

• Promos and space plans

Microsoft Enterprise Collaboration Focus Areas

Head Office • Access and share information

across departments e.g. store

opening, promotion campaigns,

marketing, IT-projects

• Corporate HR information

Supplier• Access to sales data

• Shared forecasting

• Supplier scorecard

• Collaborative product

development


Virgin — Case Study Corporate Information Portal and Collaborative Team Site Virgin is the world’s leading music and entertainment retailer with 23 Megastore locations in the United States, as well as stores throughout Europe and Japan.

Virgin Entertainment needed a more efficient and cost effective communication solution linking its head office with the store network. E-mail and a rudimentary Intranet named ‘The Wall’ had become severely limited in capacity, security, and functionality. To disseminate and share accurate and timely information throughout the organisation, Virgin Entertainment chose to evaluate many portal technologies, including Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003.

Virgin Entertainment and Xavor, a Microsoft partner, implemented SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to help its 1,600 employees collaborate more efficiently by creating a corporate information portal and collaborative team sites. The portal is the central source of information for all Virgin employees.

As a result of the implementation, the key benefits are:

• Managers spend 20 per cent more time on the sales floor

• IT support costs have reduced by more than 15 per cent

• Time spent resolving product stock issues reduced by more than 20 per cent

• 15 per cent of a typical manager’s time freed up for higher value tasks

• The total cost of ownership substantially lower than competing technologies.

“We had to stop overwhelming people with

unneeded information. SharePoint Portal

Server will give us this capability.”

Lisa Sullivan, Director of Operations, Virgin


E.Leclerc Yvetot — Case Study Customer Service Collaborative Solution and Store Communications Portal

Leclerc is the third largest retailer in France with sales of €26 billion (U.S.$31 billion), market share above 17 per cent, over 500 stores, and 76,000 employees.

E.Leclerc Yvetot had a slow, manual system of answering customers’ letters and complaints. There were no standard templates for responses and little sharing of knowledge between employees.

In addition, store employees had little access to specific store information and spent a lot of time looking for information and checking its validity. It was also difficult to brief area managers about important events, such as sales results, news, promotions feedback, and performance.

E.Leclerc implemented Microsoft Windows® SharePoint Services with workflow management for both the customer services and in-store collaboration areas. They used Microsoft Office InfoPathTM 2003 to create user forms, which provide a suggested format for customer queries and automatically convert Microsoft Word documents to mail. The suggestions for customer responses were piloted using Microsoft SQL ServerTM.

In-store Windows SharePoint Services was used to share local critical information for departments in the stores.

The key benefits of the customer services collaboration solution are:

• Reduced time to answer customer queries thanks to the ability to re-use previous answers and create a series of templates, saving time and ensuring consistency.

• The ability to provide suggested answers to save management time.

• Available dashboards allow E.Leclerc to make informed decisions quickly to improve their business and customer relationships.

The key benefits for the store communications solution are:

• All employees are aware of local critical information and details.

• Managers are able to increase face-to-face time spent with customers.

“Microsoft was very dynamic and very

responsive throughout the project.

Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services

is very easy to integrate in the existing

IT environment. This solution is become

a major point of information access for

managers and has a great user acceptance”

M. Hervé Peretti, Managing Director, E.Leclerc Yvetot


Edcon — Case StudyStore Portal and Workflow Solution Edcon is the largest apparel retailer in South Africa with eight retail brands and 750 stores.

Store PortalThe initial project included an assessment of the electronic communication process between Edcon and stores in order to understand the content and frequency of this communication and provide recommendations on how to streamline communication and maximise space utilisation on the Citrix sever. The second part of this project involved Edcon Group IT providing Edgars (Edcon’s department store division) with capacity to address issues within the store communication process. This includes identifying opportunities to improve communication and implementing these initiatives.

The main objective of the project was to develop and implement a portal that served as a single interface for all stores related communications. The application was developed on the existing SharePoint Portal Server infrastructure and was designed with the intention of re-using existing components, data, process, and system structures in the Edcon environment.

Workflow SolutionPrior to the introduction of the store portal Edcon started using other Microsoft collaborative solutions. Over the past couple of years, Edcon has been upgrading its IT systems with a focus on more efficient and productive business processes. They previously had a complex accounting and budget approval system across the group.

Working with Microsoft partners K2 and 3fifteen they implemented a web based journal application to cut down on response times for captured journals and to make amendments faster and simpler. The solution uses the K2.net workflow solution and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 for database functionality.

The main benefits Edcon has realised have been:

• Ability to take advantage of templates to handle many recurring journal entries efficiently.

• Ability to apply a validation process during data capture, rather than after which eliminates errors when interfacing with the ledger.

• Provision of a view of what is being charged to each cost centre throughout the month, rather just at specific times, which improves management response and planning.



Marks and Spencer — Case StudyHead Office Departmental Collaborative Portal Marks and Spencer is one of the UK’s leading retailers, serving 10 million customers a week in over 300 British stores and trading in 30 countries worldwide.

The company realised that productivity could be improved by allowing employees to share and reuse information more effectively. A simple to use and cost effective knowledge network was seen as the ideal solution for the 600 strong IT group, plus its contractors.

Marks and Spencer selected SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Conchango, a Microsoft Gold Certified partner, to implement the solution.

Some of the benefits from the collaborative solution include:

• Easily accessible, up-to-date information enabling faster and smarter decision making within the IT group, which translates into improved support for all parts of the business.

• A document repository containing best practice guidelines with all documents stored in and/or indexed by SharePoint Portal Server, giving people access to common documents and templates in one central location.

• An easy to customise front end based on community preferences.

• A custom built e-training package enabling new users to understand functionality in their own time and at no additional extra cost.

• Secure access ensuring that documents can be read and amended only by the appropriate people.

Accor — Case StudyGroup Enterprise Portal Accor is one of the largest hotel groups in Europe with 4,000 hotels and 158,000 employees.

Traditionally, Accor used multiple intranets to communicate information, however this approach made the implementation of multi-lingual, personalisation, and authoring processes very difficult. They wanted to have a unique portal to share and communicate with all employees of Accor, very easily and quickly.

Accor chose SharePoint Portal Server 2003 for the new portal. This is already used by 20,000 employees and will soon increase to more than 30,000. The portal was implemented rapidly in less than three months and is now used as a real multi-lingual management tool for sharing information with employees all over the world.

The key benefits for the new portal are:

• It is possible to produce new content in 10 minutes — before it took several days, so the portal can be updated and revitalised easily.

• It saves IT costs, as it is a consolidation of a number of different Intranets.

• It is easy to share information with many employees and broadcast the same message.


Benefits of a Phased ApproachMicrosoft recommends a phased approach to enhanced communication and collaboration. Most retail and hospitality organisations can make extensive use of products and systems that are, in many cases, already deployed throughout their companies. This not only leverages the technology investment in existing servers and systems, it also promotes faster, more complete user adoption by building on tools and interfaces that are already familiar through daily use.

Microsoft commitment to standards and open designs allows its solutions to work well in heterogeneous technology environments. For example, a Windows SharePoint Services collaboration team site can link within any enterprise portal solution. This allows retail and hospitality companies to create best-of-breed solutions that fit their immediate business needs, while laying the groundwork for their eventual move to an enterprise-wide strategy of standardisation.

With phased implementations, retailers can maintain their current portal usage and communication patterns while gaining additional collaboration functionality. For example, setting up unique roles for end users lays the groundwork for a roles-based portal, where an individual logs in and has a single source for all the information needed for his or her job. Roles-based portals allow managers to make faster, more accurate decisions in key areas such as labour scheduling, loss prevention, promotions, and stock control.

Setting Up the Base InfrastructureEvery company has different communication and collaboration requirements, but there are some common paths that retail and hospitality companies can take to achieve significant benefits. The Microsoft Windows Server SystemTM is a basic component in enabling communication and collaboration capabilities that can help retail and hospitality organisations to move towards an enterprise-wide strategy of standardisation. Another advantage of the Windows Server System is that it may already be supporting many retail and hospitality systems. Companies that are investing in methods to make stores, restaurants, and pubs more collaborative can leverage the same infrastructure in use at head office and throughout the enterprise, further enhancing collaboration.

For storing and managing user information and roles, Active Directory® is the integrated, distributed directory service that is included with Microsoft Windows ServerTM 2003 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server. Active Directory enables a single sign-on for its users. With the Windows Server 2003 and Active Directory infrastructure, companies can establish team collaboration sites by making use of Windows SharePoint Services and, when necessary, SharePoint Portal Server 2003, which allows them to more easily manage a large number of team sites. The Web based team collaboration environment enabled by Windows SharePoint Services is closely integrated with Microsoft Office 2003, and because Windows SharePoint Services is a component of Windows Server 2003, it provides powerful server-based communication and collaboration tools that enhance tasks users perform with Office programs every day.

Windows SharePoint Services is core to the base infrastructure needed for collaboration. It lets organisations take file storage to a new level, providing communities for team projects and making it easier for users to work together on documents, tasks, contacts, plans, events, and other information.

Microsoft and Its Technologies

“ SharePoint was very easy to integrate… …actually,

it even enabled us to have a centralisation

point for all our Intranet technologies. Accor is

established in a number of countries through

various activities, such as the hotel trade and

services, it was therefore important that this tool

could be used in different languages, worldwide.”

Jean Marc Espalioux, Chairman of the Management Board, Accor



Advanced Communication and CollaborationWindows Server 2003 supports advanced communication and collaboration. Supporting the application integration process are XML Web services and Microsoft Web parts. Collaborative services such as discussions, calendaring, and document management are provided.

Web parts are Microsoft customisable components for exposing information and applications through a portal. Web parts can be intelligent to a user’s role and so can filter the wide range of corporate information hospitality managers use on a daily basis. Taking advantage of the development flexibility offered by Microsoft .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio®, Web parts can plug into corporate systems, such as labour scheduling and sales or stock data, to present customised views depending on role. Then, users can access internal data, external feeds, and collaboration tools from a single interface.

Retail and hospitality companies can more easily control who has access to information with the help of Microsoft Windows Server Rights Management Services, which provides information protection technology and helps safeguard digital information from unauthorised use.

Webconferencing Made EasyMicrosoft Office Live Meeting is a powerful tool to allow users to run, track, and participate in webconferencing meetings. All the attendees or presenter needs is a PC, an Internet connection, and a telephone. Live Meeting allows users to share desktop applications, presentations and Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel® documents collaboratively anywhere in the world.

A Powerful Development EnvironmentThe Microsoft .NET Framework provides retail and hospitality companies (and their ISVs) a development environment that allows them to easily tailor applications to specific business needs. In addition to supporting more than 20 programming languages, it also manages much of the ‘plumbing’ involved in developing software.

Enabling Basic CollaborationE-mail and messaging is a vital first step in enabling basic collaboration. Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 provides a strong platform for mission critical messaging and collaboration. Exchange Server is designed to work together with Windows Server 2003 to provide high levels of performance, reliability, security, and manageability. Exchange Server 2003, Windows SharePoint Services, and Microsoft Outlook® 2003 are also designed to work together, helping users to be productive and collaborate whenever and wherever they work. Used properly, e-mail and messaging enables mobile and remote workers, who are common in far-flung retail and hospitality enterprises, to communicate and collaborate on the go even with a low bandwidth connection.

The ability to detect another user’s availability on one or more devices (known as ‘presence awareness’), such as those supporting voice, e-mail, instant messaging, and videocon- ferencing can really help knowledge sharing. Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 provides a powerful, scalable, enterprise-grade instant messaging, and integrated presence solution that lets people communicate in real time across the company.

Live Communications Server 2005 also supports peer-to-peer audio and video, as well as application sharing and data collab-oration. It improves business efficiencies across organisational boundaries by extending instant messaging and other real-time communication capabilities to trusted partners, customers, and suppliers. Examples include training, process communication, sharing information, and joint product development.

“Of course the store managers are out walking

the floor. Now they have a system backing them

up with hard information and alerts.”

Dr Gerd Wolfram, Executive Project Manager, Future Store Initiative, METRO Group


Making the ConnectionAll this communication and collaboration functionality is accessed in different ways by different individuals throughout the organisation. The common vehicle in pulling it together is the enterprise portal. These enterprise portals will contain a variety of elements depending on the user’s role and the portal deployment.

Additionally, Microsoft offers users more of what they want:

• A familiar and consistent platform so everyone can use the portal immediately.

• Anytime, anywhere access to collaboration services, for example through mobile devices for area managers on the move, at the till for store staff or via PDAs or lap tops for buyers, marketing executives, and head office store operations employees.

• Single interface for access to applications, so store staff and other users are not even aware that they are dipping in and out of a number of different applications.

• Access to relevant information only — specific views are available relevant to a particular employee’s role, department, and geographical location.

Further technical information is available from www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/sps2003/ default.mspx

Making Smarter Collaboration a RealityAs retail and hospitality companies reach the enterprise strategy and standardisation phase of collaboration, new capabilities become available that embody many aspects of the Microsoft Smarter Retailing and Microsoft Smarter Hospitality initiatives from Microsoft. Smarter Retailing®, consisting of Smarter Shopping, Smarter Selling, and Smarter Operations is designed to help retailers dramatically improve how they sell and operate through better access to customers and product information. Smarter Hospitality, with its three pillars of Smarter Guest Experience, Smarter Service, and Smarter Operations, helps hotels, pubs, and restaurants operate more efficiently, while meeting the expectations of digitally enabled guests and employees.

In the store, restaurant, or hotel environment, there are numerous ways that enhanced communication and collaboration gives companies the tools to embody Smarter Retailing and Smarter Hospitality. By creating a single source or workbench for relevant, actionable corporate information, roles based portals at the store

or restaurant level, can free managers from the back room and put them where they can have the most positive impact on sales and customer service

When these portals are extended to mobile and handheld devices, managers gain even more freedom, allowing them to engage in real-time decision making to deal with issues such as out-of-stocks, customer complaints, or in-store merchandising.

The ability to access such resources remotely is also essential to both retail and hospitality district managers responsible for multiple stores, restaurants, pubs, and hotels. Their efficiency can be significantly improved by the use of digital dashboards which provide top-line reports from all locations, with Web parts that give them the capability to drill down into the full report if they require more detailed information. Increasingly sophisticated dashboard applications allow for exception based reporting, which raise red flags if key performance indicators (KPIs) fall outside a set of customised, predetermined parameters. Such functionality gives district and area managers an accurate, real-time snapshot of the activity they are responsible for.

As retail and hospitality companies increase internal communication and collaboration, they can also look to extend benefits outside the enterprise. This could mean working with vendors and manufacturers in the product development process, as well as connecting with vendors in the supply chain or customers after the sale for follow up and feedback. This capability is important in the case of product recalls, for example. There is also strong potential to simplify and speed supply chains, creating additional efficiencies and lowering costs for both suppliers and retailers.

Collaboration doesn’t just happen once the tools are in place; it requires a cultural shift for many companies. Each company’s experience will vary, but there are some general principles that can help make these deployments successful:

• Define and communicate new collaborative processes so everyone understands and complies with the new process.

• Ensure that there is a central owner and content manager of the portal so that there is a common look, feel, and purpose. In the case of store portals, it is essential to have head office control over content so that priorities are given to stores.

• Companies should use a variety of methods to ensure that users not only understand how to use collaboration tools, but in what contexts they can and should be used, training people with as many ‘real life’ scenarios as possible.


Benefits of Smarter CollaborationFor those companies that manage the process effectively the benefits will be significant. These include:

• Increased sales and better productivity.

• Store employees are freed from administration and can spend more time with customers.

• Store employees can easily access information on stock levels, promotions, and other channels to help customers.

• Greater consistency of retail experience from the brand and operations point of view.

• Faster decision making with better access to more actionable information.

• Better and more timely execution of head office initiatives, such as promotions, markdowns, planograms, and branding.

• Increased employee motivation as less time is spent looking for information and more is available for higher value tasks

• Better prioritisation of activities and information.

• Reduced communications costs — less post, fax, and courier usage.

• Alleviation of information overload.

• Faster, more accurate decision-making.

• Ability to create a virtuous cycle of insight and execution.

• Ability to work to tighter deadlines through collaboration, e.g. fast fashion and collaborative product development.

A Comprehensive Approach to Communication and CollaborationMicrosoft is in a strong position to help retailers and hospitality companies collaborate more effectively, internally and with external companies. The key Microsoft assets in this area are the following:

Market LeadershipMicrosoft communication and collaboration solutions make extensive use of tools and technologies that are not only available today, but may already be deployed throughout the company. Because these technologies are familiar and are in widespread use, retail and hospitality companies have an opportunity to extend their collaboration infrastructure from head office to stores, restaurants, and hotels, leveraging their entire technology investment and lowering lifecycle costs, both in terms of capital investment and in the areas of IT expertise and resources.

Flexible ArchitectureMicrosoft’s comprehensive range of partners, along with its embracing of standards and open systems design, supports the creation of best-of-breed solutions that meet a retail or hospitality company’s specific business requirements. The Microsoft supporting infrastructure and many of its collaboration applications are designed to work with existing portals and communication tools.

Phased Implementation and Completeness of SolutionsMicrosoft supports phased implementations of communication and collaboration solutions as the most effective way to achieve corporate buy-in. These solutions provide strong, measurable return on investment where business needs demand it most. These phased implementations are made possible by Microsoft’s flexible technology architecture. However, retail and hospitality companies that make more extensive use of Microsoft communication and collaboration solutions can take advantage of a fully integrated platform, one that will interoperate effectively out of the box, providing information anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

In conclusion, the Microsoft enterprise collaboration platform, combined with these three major asset areas, allows retail and hospitality companies to enable the Smarter Retailing and Hospitality scenarios that will bring them the greatest business value in the quickest possible time frame, while also laying the groundwork for additional solutions that will help them address their evolving business needs.


Microsoft Supplier Directory

Avanadewww.avanade.com

Avanade is a leading system integrator specialising in the conception, development, and implementation of Microsoft technologies for large and mid-sized companies. As a joint venture by Accenture and Microsoft, Avanade participates early in the development of new Microsoft products. Avanade uses this specific expertise for the

benefit of its customers and includes leading-edge technologies in its long-term strategy. Highly-trained employees experienced in the management of complex projects provide professional and custom solutions within tight time constraints. Many customers in the retail industry like Central Retail Corporation, Tesco or buy.com use Avanade’s expertise

to generate business benefits, for example with portal, data warehouse, identity management, or infrastructure solutions.Avanade is a global company with more than 3,700 employees in Europe, Asia, the United States, and Australia.

Charteris www.charteris.com

Charteris Real-time Business Activity Monitor for Retail. It enables retail businesses to empower managers and executives at local store, regional, national or global level with the unprecedented capability to collaborate with each other to make

rapid and intelligent business decisions that can boost revenues and improve customer service. Key staff on the ground can now have the real-time reporting information they need to support ‘gut-feel’ and experience. Head office and IT,

meanwhile, have the ability to realise the full potential of investment in hitherto diverse and unconnected systems — quickly and at relatively low cost.

Conchango www.conchango.com

Developing and maintaining an environment where employees and suppliers can instantly share information and make efficient and error-free transactions is one of the toughest challenges facing retailers today. Retailers see the importance of both internal and external/ supplier

‘collaboration’ as a means to create efficiencies, empower employees, and gain competitive advantage — however realising the issue and fixing the problem are worlds apart! Conchango understands these challenges and has formulated an ‘enterprise collaboration vision’ that

provides a comprehensive range of services and software that understands the unique needs in retail, and delivers the capability to enable people and systems to work together more effectively.

K2.net www.k2workflow.com

The K2.netTM 2003 solution automates human-to-human and human-to-system business processes, providing a robust, flexible workflow environment that promotes creative and collaborative ideas whilst reducing costs.

K2.net supports the Microsoft Smarter Retailing initative by accelerating the automation of processes at ‘the edge’ and throughout the Retail enterprise. K2.net helps to design and automate processes that interact with the consumer, manage supply chains, and

support the back office to enable retailers to optimise these processes to both reduce costs and provide a better and more personalised customer experience.

Meridio www.meridio.com

Meridio is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise Document and Records Management (eDRM) software, engineered for Microsoft .NET platforms. Meridio’s mission is to enable senior executives to meet their goals of regulatory compliance,

business efficiency, and profitability. With massive scalability, exceptional usability, and proven deployment success, Meridio’s secure Document and Records Management is an essential component of compliance infrastructure. Meridio eDRM enforces

access, retention, and destruction policies of content, across the distributed enterprise and has excellent live references across a number of market sectors. Meridio is an accredited Microsoft Gold Partner.


Software4Youwww.software4you.com

Software4You Planungssysteme GmbH provides unique skills, tools and technologies for modern information management. We offer years of experience, expertise and specialised knowledge of the retail trade Software4You concentrates on

development of customised BI solutions for use by mid-sized and enterprise companies. This includes portal server implementation, Web based reporting / analysis, scorecard implementation based on Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager as well

as tools and techniques for use in data analysis.

Tata Consultancy Serviceswww.tcs.com

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a USD 2.2 billion IT solutions & services firm, envisioned & pioneered the adoption of global service delivery that today enables companies to operate more efficiently & produce superior value. For over three decades, the retail industry vertical at TCS has been helping retailers stay

ahead of the competition through complete lifecycle services from actionable advice to application development & maintenance across retail functions like supply chain, merchandising & store solutions. Within the enterprise collaboration space TCS has deployed retail solutions like Store managers

workbench, New store opening, Store-HQ collaboration, Store employee training portal and Supplier collaboration. To learn more about the way TCS can help you, please contact Amit Bajaj, Head — Retail & CG (Europe) at [email protected]

Wipro www.wipro.com

Wipro’s Store Manager Workbench allows the store manager to always be available on the shop floor. The solution provides real-time sales performance tracking to improve store level profitability through trend analysis and forecasting. Out of stock alerts and quality of service allow the

store manager to get an accurate picture of the product availability. Wipro’s solution supports a ‘Shared Vision’ between the organisation and its employees, who are integral to an organisation. The portal and content management practice provides solutions enabling

information portals, discussion boards, forums for exchanging tips and creation of a personalised web experience to meet business objectives with a combination of the Microsoft and InterWoven product suite.

Microsoft Enterprise Collaboration Enabling the next generation of retail innovation

To find out about Microsoft’s Retail proposition, please visit www.microsoft.com/smartretail

More Information

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, the Microsoft logo, Windows, BizTalk Server, and SQL Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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