With Citrix as our application delivery infrastructure foundation, we can now literally link data to a retail outlet anywhere in Thailand or the world overnight, unencumbered by the typical technology hurdles that other companies face.

Palakorn Khisalang IT Manager, PEPPO Fashions Group Co. Ltd

PEPPO Fashions stays in style with a Citrix application delivery solution

Established in 1997, PEPPO Fashions Group Co. Ltd is today one of the leading fashion distributors in Thailand, exclusively managing a stable of world-renowned labels including Guess, Guess Baby/Kids, Guess Accessory Stores, Marciano, Mango and Castro. Capitalizing on the growing consumer appetite in Thailand for ready-to-wear, brand-name apparel from the United States and Europe, PEPPO has successfully grown its business at a rate of 20 percent year-on-year. In 2005 alone, PEPPO opened 14 new stores across Thailand. As of early 2006, PEPPO had retail outlets, stores, offices and warehouses in more than 50 different locations, including Bangkok, Pattaya, Chiangmai, Phuket and other provinces.

The Challenge: Automating and streamlining workflow

“The overall goal for PEPPO was to find a technology solution that could help us automate and streamline the workflow of our front-end and back-end retail processes,” said Palakorn Khisalang, IT manager, PEPPO Fashions Group Co. Ltd. “However, PEPPO had an interesting set of requirements that meant we needed a technology solution that could help us build a highly adaptable retail model.”

Mr. Khisalang elaborated that the first challenge concerned the Point Of Sale (POS). While PEPPO operates 12 standalone retail outlets, its major retail presence is via 50 outlets located within big department stores. However, these department stores constantly refresh their layout and require tenants to move within the building several times a year. It became a time-consuming and costly exercise for PEPPO to re-architect its IT network after each move. Moreover, department stores often run promotional bazaars at central locations. It was difficult for PEPPO’s staff to conduct customer transactions away from their regular in-store counter. This often led to discrepancies between the actual transactions and the receipts generated.

With so many retail locations, another major challenge was managing IT operations using a client/server computing model. This distributed architecture, which experienced significant network latency, negatively affected the efficient collection and accuracy of sales data. Mr. Khisalang explained that latency hindered the management team in running analyses of their sales data; the lack of up-to-date sales information can be critical in the fast-moving retail sector.

“The third challenge,” said Mr. Khisalang, “was finding an efficient way to keep track of inventory back at our warehouses.” PEPPO decided to move from a manual system to bar-coding, but needed a technology that would allow staff to register inventory while on the move, instead of having to return to a central computer terminal to enter data.

Key benefitsEnhanced business agility, •decision-making and growth

Real-time access to •POS system for improved customer service

Centralised IT management •and faster application delivery

Annual bandwidth cost •savings of US$1,600 per location

One-time savings of •US$287,000 by delaying PC upgrades from three years to five years

Case study

PEPPO Fashions

Citrix Application Delivery for Retail

2 PEPPO Fashions

Implementing Citrix Presentation Server

“PEPPO decided on Citrix technology because it enabled us to centralise and simplify the management of our distributed retail network,” explained Mr. Khisalang. “The load-balancing capabilities of Citrix, and ability to print over low-bandwidth connections, were important factors in the decision.”

With the help of Information Enterprise Co. Ltd, a Silver Citrix® Solution Advisor, PEPPO implemented Citrix Presentation Server™ with Microsoft® Windows Server® 2003 running on two HP ProLiant servers in the firm’s datacenter in Bangkok.

With this solution, PEPPO is able to provide approximately 340 staff at 50 different locations throughout Thailand with secure remote access to critical business applications via a 128 kbps ISDN connection. These applications include Microsoft® Office 2003, Oracle Database 10g and a proprietary ERP solution called PEPPOS that is customized for retail management.

With the Citrix Presentation Server solution, point-of-sale staff at PEPPO’s retail outlets and in- store counters are able to access the PEPPOS solution wirelessly from their PDAs over a 802.11b/g WLAN interface.

At the warehouses, PEPPO is using Citrix to optimize its inventory management process. As the application delivery infrastructure foundation, Citrix Presentation Server provides staff with real-time application delivery to PEPPOS via PCs and wirelessly over PDAs. As goods move in and out of the warehouses, the bar code attached to each item is scanned, allowing the staff to track inventory movement. Previously, they had to walk to a LAN terminal to manually enter the data.

Security over the network is provided using a VPN combined with a two-factor authentication procedure comprising an RSA SecurID token and password.

Improved business agility and employee productivity

PEPPO has seen strategic benefits following its implementation of Citrix technology.

“Using Citrix as our application delivery infrastructure foundation, we aim to give PEPPO a new-found business agility that enables us to stay on top of the fast-changing consumer retail dynamics,” said Mr. Khisalang.

By centralising application delivery and management on Citrix servers and providing virtualised application access on PDAs, PEPPO can easily handle department store counter relocations and periodic sales from central bazaars without having to reinstall POS terminals and other equipment. This saves time and money.

At the same time, productivity for retail staff has improved because they no longer need to walk to and from fixed terminals to capture the data. Similarly, PEPPO’s warehouse staff has experienced productivity improvements enabled by real-time inventory tracking.

Added Mr. Khisalang, “Low-bandwidth printing has also been critical to business productivity at both the back-end and retail fronts. Our accountants can remotely print the day’s transactions from the head office. And our warehouse assistants can generate delivery notes, invoices, consignment notes and price tags wirelessly as well.”

Networking environmentCitrix Presentation Server• ™ running on two HP ProLiant servers

Microsoft• ® Windows Server® 2003

A mix of WLAN and 128 •Kbps ISDN leased lines

Over 100 client devices, •comprising a variety of Pentium PCs and PDAs

Centralized computing architecture reduces IT costs

“Because Citrix technology reduces system requirements, we have been able to delay the imminent upgrade of our existing PCs, achieving a one-time savings of THB 1.12 million (US$287,000) in 2005,” said Mr. Khisalang. “Citrix has also enabled us to extend the lifespan of our client devices from three years to five years because the latest applications can be accessed on virtually any computer.”

Mr. Khisalang added that centralized management provided by the Citrix solution has enabled PEPPO to maintain its IT headcount at three people, despite a significant increase in the number of stores and IT users. For example, the IT staff now takes only one hour to upgrade or install a new application on the Citrix servers, compared to two weeks previously required to install or upgrade software company-wide.

Citrix technology has also enabled PEPPO to achieve significant savings in bandwidth costs. Mr. Khisalang explained: “Other retailers typically use leased lines requiring 512 Kbps to 1MB of bandwidth, but with Citrix Presentation Server we only require 128 Kbps because application processing takes place on the server. Based on the price differential, we estimate an annual savings of THB 60,000 (US$1,600) in bandwidth costs per location alone.”

Moreover, he added, Citrix has enabled PEPPO to deliver more applications over this same amount of bandwidth.

Citrix solutions as a foundation for growth

Mr. Khisalang explained that Citrix solutions will play an important role in the growth of PEPPO’s business. Over the next 12 months, he plans to roll out new accounting applications via Citrix Presentation Server and provide more PDAs to sales staff. Having automated the inventory management system, Mr. Khisalang intends to further improve the process by making it accessible online and in real time using Citrix Presentation Server.

The company will also be relying heavily on Citrix technology in the future, as it aims to grow by another 20 percent over the next 12 months and open another eight new stores across the country.

“With Citrix as our application delivery infrastructure foundation, we can now literally link data to a retail outlet anywhere in Thailand or the world overnight, unencumbered by the typical technology hurdles that other companies face,” concluded Mr. Khisalang.

About Citrix Presentation ServerCitrix Presentation Server™ is the de facto standard for delivering Windows applications at the lowest cost—to any user, anywhere. It offers both application virtualization and application streaming delivery methods to enable the best access experience for any user, with any device, working over any network. By centralizing applications and data in secure datacenters, IT can reduce costs of management and support, increase data security, and facilitate business continuity. Presentation Server allows IT to deliver applications as a service—providing on-demand access to users, while affording IT the flexibility to leverage future application architectures.

©2006 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix® and Citrix Presentation Server™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Microsoft®, Windows® and Windows Server® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Peppo.0907.pdf

Applications deliveredMicrosoft• ® Office 2003

Oracle Database 10g•

Proprietary ERP solution for •retail management (PEPPOS)

www.citrix.com