June 2007 Midlands Co-operative Society, a successful and growing regional retailer with over 170 food and non-food stores, is progressing with projects to improve support of its retail operations in the UK by implementing new systems to manage central data, orders, store inventory, replenishment, point of sale and payments.

These new systems will be based on Aldata's G.O.L.D. Supply Chain Management and In-Store software.

Midlands Co-op operates from its Business Support Centre in Lichfield. It is currently the second largest independent Co-operative Society in the UK with gross sales in excess of £720 million and includes supermarkets, convenience stores, and department stores within its retail estate.

The Aldata implementation methodology is allowing for fast and cost-effective implementation, while ensuring maximum knowledge transfer. The modular but integrated nature of G.O.L.D. allows for flexible implementation also enabling fast delivery of the business benefits that are important to Midlands Co-op.

"Midlands Co-op is seeking to improve its operational efficiency and flexibility through the implementation of Aldata G.O.L.D." said Tony Carroll, retail general manager for Midlands Co-op. "In G.O.L.D. we have found a system that will adapt to our dynamic business in a fast-changing retail landscape. We are investing in technology that will benefit our customers, our members, and our staff."

"The technical architecture of the Aldata system was a big attraction," said Mark Ruttley, head of IT at Midlands Co-op. "We have chosen an open, scalable system which will drive large business benefits quickly within a simplified, integrated structure."

Since the announcement, Midlands Co-op has put together a project team of 12 full-time staff and managers, drawn from both retail and IT. In addition, Midlands Co-op will pull in specialists from the retail team to manage individual product categories. Ruttley explains, "this is a retail-driven project and the team is headed up by our head of retail. This way, the business gets ownership of the output".

Phase One of the project will go live in late 2007 and involves the development of G.O.L.D. Central to manage the product file, store ranging, pricing and promotions. Phase Two - a much larger project - will involve the complete replacement of Midlands Co-op's point-of-sale (PoS) systems with Aldata's G.O.L.D POS. A pilot will be implemented in early 2008 with full store estate roll out over the following 12 months.

In parallel with Phase Two rollout, Phase Three will be initiated to maximise the benefits of adopting Aldata's solutions and these will include planning, invoice matching and forecasting.

Contact
Aldata
www.aldata-solution.com