34 CASESTUDY
AURORA FASHIONS MOVES
TO FULL IT OUTSOURCING High Street womenswear brands develop IT outsourcing relationship with provider Retail Assist to create a fl exible, cost-effective shared IT platform
Retail Assist were the ideal partner for the expansion required, an excellent fi t for our staff, and the move would allow our brands to focus on satisfying the needs of their customers
Oasis and Warehouse – which are all aimed at the higher end of the market. Karen Millen, the premium womenswear chain was
A
part of the Aurora Fashions Group until March 2011, when it was launched as a separate entity to fulfi l its global expansion plans. Aurora started to fi nd data exchange a big challenge
as it worked with more and more partners covering own-fascia stores, concessions and franchises. To support this trading model, it had to develop and maintain multiple system interfaces across different time zones and systems platforms. Retail Assist eXchange (Ra-X) was launched in
2007 to transfer sales data between host retailers and Aurora’s own systems for all of its brands. Retail Assist’s Rubilite system was also deployed to support Warehouse concessions. Ra-X includes daily collection of consolidated sales data from each trading partner and its transmission to Aurora together with analysis of any failures or discrepancies. The service is governed by service level agreements (SLAs) that aim to achieve a consistently high rate of polling success. This mechanism is providing the Coast, Oasis,
Warehouse and Karen Millen brands with accurate, timely and consistent sales data worldwide, giving a solid platform for continued international business growth. The primary service is hosted at Retail Assist’s data
centre, a secure facility with 24-hour monitoring and a controlled environment for full backup and disaster
urora Fashions owns, develops and manages the performance of some of the UK’s most popular women’s fashion brands – Coast,
recovery. The data centre links to sales systems in Aurora stores, concessions, franchises, online sales and head offi ce, translating price look-up (PLU) and sales data into the correct format and sending it out quickly and securely. This outsourced service has given Aurora business visibility over its sales data without the costs and burden of maintaining systems in-house. Aurora was aware that Retail Assist was operating a store systems helpdesk on behalf of other retailers, each of which was benefi ting from the shared services approach and enjoying the economies of scale that Retail Assist was passing on from its Nottingham support centre. Given this proven competence and the track record that Retail Assist had built with the group, Aurora felt they could outsource their helpdesk with confi dence in early 2008. Paula Evans, who managed the transition in her
role as Aurora head of IT services, commented: “The handover to Retail Assist was seamless. Our users didn’t even notice the change of service.” Support is provided across the entire store estate and all the electronic point-of-sale (EPoS) systems used by Aurora and comprises initial problem diagnosis and resolution. Aurora was also particularly impressed by the
work that Retail Assist does on capturing, analysing and publishing call metrics. Evans added: “We can demonstrate the service we provide to our partners, and this is driving further service improvements.” When, in 2011 as part of its corporate strategy,
Aurora looked to outsource infrastructure services including IT, the company invited Retail Assist to put forward a proposal detailing how it could move from services supplier to manage Aurora’s entire IT operation. Retail Assist was successful in reaching an agreement in a competitive scenario and 48 former Aurora employees went on to join Retail Assist. Richard Glanville, Aurora chief fi nancial offi cer, said: “The new structure – which was achieved without any job losses – was very much about growth. We saw that Retail Assist were the ideal partner for the expansion required, an excellent fi t for our staff, and the move would allow our brands to focus on satisfying the needs of their customers.” For Aurora, the new arrangements preserved the
shared services benefi ts of cost-effectiveness, access to expertise and ‘best practice’ IT solutions, providing the group and Karen Millen with a strong foundation for future growth.
RETAIL TECHNOLOGY NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011
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