26 OUTSOURCINGISSUE
NEW BALANCE RETAIL IT INTO CLOUD
N
ew Balance, a global athletic products company, has implemented Cybertill’s cloud-
based retail solution, which has allowed it to focus on its clients by making sure it gets the right products to the right stores for its customers.
With three factory outlets located throughout the Lake District, New Balance experiences a high proportion of tourists, who are holidaying in the Lakes, visiting its stores. This means that the make-up of much of their client base is sporadic and remote. Cybertill has grown the mail order element of New Balance exponentially, as sales manager Debbie Harrison, explained: “We ask all clients if they want to be included in the database and receive our monthly special offers.
“Cybertill has made this so easy, as at point of sale we capture their details. Then each month, via Cybertill, we send them our monthly special offers newsletter. This regular communication and ongoing collection of data at point of sale ensures that mail order sales are much more profi table.” The Cybertill solution has also centralised instore stock information. “Before our head offi ce always had to wait at least 24 hours for sales information and stock replenishment across the estate was ineffi cient. Also transferring stock between stores was a nightmare, as we could not see what each store was holding, so stores were constantly on the phone to one another, so transfers were very rarely made.” explained Harrison. By using Cybertill’s electronic point-of-sale (EPoS) solution in place, stores now have
instant visibility to real time stock levels across its estate. “Before you had what you had, now we can transfer or place back orders on the system, so the client always gets the right product,” Harrison added. “Since deploying Cybertill all stores can see
exactly what the other stores are turning over so they are all working to be number one. This also helped with interaction and communication between stores too,” she continued. As Cybertill is a cloud-based computing solution, where the software is accessed via a broadband connection, head offi ce can access real-time sales information across the outlets. “This has saved fi nance hours of work a
day. It is also easier to reconcile differences as well against any discrepancies. They don’t necessarily even have to speak to the stores,” concluded Harrison.
The Build-A-Bear Workshop wanted to be able to understand the customer experience of on its interactive website, buildabearville. com, in real-time and ensure stress on the site would not hinder performance. AppLabs was chosen to coordinate its own performance testing
experts with an external development team and the Build-a-Bear quality assurance team. The application testing provider uncovered system issues that had not been considered and assisted to quickly resolve them with the development team. Once addressed, Build-a- Bear could meet its target capacity of concurrent users. Dave East, Build-a-Bear director of IT network services, said: “AppLabs provided the required resources and was able to adjust quickly to changes and was the only company we found able to handle our requests.”
RETAIL TECHNOLOGY MARCH/APRIL 2011
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