Retail Technology March 2008
Nisa-Today's is the UK's largest distribution and services organisation for retail and wholesale companies. The company is run solely by and for the benefit of its 674 Nisa retail members operating over 5,000 stores, including Booths, Costcutter and Proudfoot, and its 300 Today's wholesale companies with 320 depots.

Nisa-Today's previous IT systems and interfaces were restrictive in managing one consistent set of data effectively, which led to some duplication of data entry and keying errors. The bespoke systems required advancement to increase the sophistication of the group's member services and develop further efficiencies throughout its business practices.

The group wanted to create a single, flexible system offering multi-functionality in terms of merchandising, forecasting and order capture, and the scalability to support increasing numbers of stock keeping units (SKUs).

With a centralised entity for pricing and products, Nisa-Today's realised it could better control and drive business plans and supply chain execution, leading to improved visibility of further cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. In addition, the new system needed to be relatively inexpensive and not involve too many modifications as the company expanded.

Having discounted an SAP retail system, Nisa-Today's identified Oracle Retail applications as a good fit for its business and selected the Oracle Retail Merchandising System, Oracle Retail Demand Forecasting and Oracle Retail Invoice Matching.

These solutions offer Nisa-Today's a flexible and scalable foundation from which it can automate and execute core merchandising activities and build further efficiencies into many of its merchandising and forecasting processes.

"Although this was an IT-led project, the selection process was strongly supported by the business, including members, the board and employees, who all became involved in site references and the final selection, remaining true to the collaborative process at the core of Nisa-Today's business," said Nisa-Today's IT director, Wayne Swallow.

"Oracle Retail offered us an efficient solution from which we could enhance our member support and further assist them in competing in the grocery retail marketplace against the national supermarket chains. The flexibility and scalability of the technology allows us to continue to strengthen our service opportunities as we recruit more members."

Following a successful pilot in 2002/3, Nisa-Today's worked with implementation partner Enabler to make software further modifications to enhance processes and improve efficiencies. Many of these enhancements have helped develop the Oracle Retail Merchandising System for a wholesale business that requires an extra level of pricing between suppliers and members.

In June 2004, Nisa-Today's went live with the management of its frozen goods. Go-live in the two temperature-controlled warehouses with chilled groceries followed in July 2004. Finally, operations commenced in the ambient warehouse in Scunthorpe, which accounts for about 60% of its business, in October 2005, and an official opening took place in March 2006.

"We have one single informative entity for pricing and products. The accurate demand forecast drives Nisa-Today's business plans and ensures strong, consistent execution through the supply chain - from the supplier to the warehouses, and out to the members' stores and distribution centres," said Swallow.

"In addition, many of our members are already benefiting from the automated invoice matching process, which improves productivity by reducing the costs and time involved in managing a manual invoicing process. This has further increased internal controls and accuracy and we're working with our remaining members to communicate the benefits of the system to them over the next 18 months."

The group continues to modify and improve its IT infrastructure to ensure that all its IT systems integrate well, including the Order Capture System designed specifically to help Nisa-Today's manage and capture orders. Benefits of the combined system are resulting in improved visibility to cross-selling and up-selling functionalities and promotions.

"The new infrastructure enables Nisa-Today's to continue to move to the next level of growth and performance without any increase in process complexity," Swallow said. "In essence, we're providing our independent retailers and wholesalers with the opportunities to compete more effectively with the national supermarket chains."

Contact

Oracle Retail
www.oracle.com/retail