They had a difficult POS solution, such that store managers had become POS experts and spent a lot of time with trainees who would often leave and have to be replaced. This chain’s profitability depends on responsive movement of stock between sites, especially during major sports events. Their retail solution was little help in balancing stock rapidly, since on-hand quantities had to be tracked one store at a time by phone. Retail Teamwork’s real-time data streaming has enabled them to do continuous stock balancing among locations minute to minute during major events. Islands of automation have disappeared and stores now have the ability to get POS staff productive in about an hour.

These stores work to maximize sales and profit by rapid transfer of merchandise items between stores.Their retail solution, based on old-style “polling”, was not able to accurately resolve fluctuating inventory levels or correct transit discrepancies. There was no stock audit function to track inventory precisely to item level. Worse, they were experiencing data integrity issues, causing their reports to be disbelieved by management. In fact, the company was mired in a dangerous confusion of missing or misleading information about stock levels, purchase commitments, and receiving history. Retail Teamwork’s resolution of this scenario – based on MS SQL database, the Dynamics business platform, and real time data streaming – provided the IT manager with his “first good night’s sleep in months!”

A growing shoe and apparel chain spent continuous energy, money and time to get enough merchandising data to keep a standard of control across 26 stores. This was not made easier when key reports were eliminated in a version upgrade of their retail solution. The chain is a well-managed company that cares about good reports and controls. Retail Teamwork was able to demonstrate full resolution through the all-in-one Dynamics platform, assured data integrity, and the reporting facilities embedded in MS SQL 2005. For the first time this chain had a way to facilitate growth and maintain standards of control.