Johannesburg, 11 Apr 2007
Keith Fenner, strategic sales director, Softline ACCPAC, says South Africa remains a Third World country with infrastructure challenges that inhibit retailers` technology aspirations.
"We are nowhere near a First World country when it comes to the retail sector. This is as a result of the country`s infrastructure and also in some cases the understanding of what technology is needed to assist retailers," says Fenner.
He says the two biggest headaches for any retailer are stock management and speed to shelf of stock. The answer, according to Fenner, does not lie in a debate about information flow, or the very clever use of hot technologies such as RFID and SOA, but instead, he says, it is time to go back to what people now see as the basics: end-to-end retail management solutions.
"The time for SOA and RFID in South African retailing will come, but for now, we believe that retailers need to address their basic needs first and ensure they have a solid end-to-end solution in place before moving forward," comments Fenner.
Key ingredients of a successful end-to-end solution include a fully integrated back office ERP solution and a front office point of sale solution, which is tailored to the needs of the business. "This can be connected seamlessly to a CRM solution, loyalty scheme and dynamic permission-based marketing," says Fenner.
A key criterion in terms of point of sale solutions, or as it is now known, a retail management solution, is the ability to work on and offline. Fenner says that this is where South Africa`s infrastructure challenges come into play. Retailers need a system that can operate both on and offline without compromising the controls and quality of data fed to and received from stores.
"This is vital as things become more complex as soon as retail stores start doing inter-branch transfers, price management and address purchase projections. Of course, once you add in complexities of loyalty, customer service, call centres, customer profiling, merchandising and marketing campaign measurement, the need for an end-to-end retail management solution is no longer a good idea, it is a necessity," says Fenner.
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