RetailT F
ounded in 1988 by two friends to support their skiing adventures in the Alps, Fat Face has
grown to become a well-known and growing brand on the UK High Street. During this time, the active lifestyle clothing
and accessories retailer has survived two recessions to build an estate of over 200 stores across the UK, Ireland and internationally, in France, Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East, alongside established e-commerce and wholesale operations. Anthony Thompson, Fat Face chief executive,
most recently revealed that the company’s further ambitions to expand now include the US. He revealed plans to open two or three stores on the East Coast and a US website in the next two years, as it reported underlying growth of 35% to £31.2 million in annual profits to 1 June. With its sights set firmly on growing its brand
across multiple geographies and channels, the retailer has been updating its IT systems to cope. Most recently this has included the introduction of a new electronic point-of-sale (EPoS) system to its stores, which was completed within tight deadlines, alongside the latest software and networking services to support more efficient operations and management. Leon Shepherd, Fat Face business change and IT
director, recently spoke to Retail Technology about the company’s strategy and execution, in addition to some of its IT activities. He began by filling in some of the background to its recent IT investment-related activity. “Fat Face went through a period of growth over the last 25 years in terms of physical stores. But it was becoming difficult to scale to our existing IT systems against the kind of growth we’re projecting now. During Christmas sales a year ago particularly, the EPoS systems would struggle to cope with the volume of transactions coming through. “Retailers aren’t known for spending money on
IT when in early growth stages of maybe 50, 60 or 70 stores,” he commented. “But Fat Face is now an international retailer with hundreds of stores. It’s possible to make do and stretch existing resources for a while, as retailers generally don’t like making big capital investments, especially on IT projects that might overrun in terms of time and cost. So there are growing pains, where they may see some outages for example, or instances where the tills aren’t able to send through supply chain data, impacting replenishment,” he added. He said the time comes when a retailer must invest in the ability of its IT systems to
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Business loves IT change if it meets business needs and is business driven
echnology
support growth. “This is driven by functionality, services or offerings that the existing IT doesn’t give you,” he explained, citing multichannel integration as an important factor for Fat Face moving forward. Using customer ordering as an example, he added: “It wasn’t available instore, from the web. With the existing process, staff placed the order in what was a long and unsatisfactory experience for the customer. The new store process integrates web orders at the till, making it much quicker for the customer. And, like this, it’s often the case that the business loves IT change if it meets business needs and is business driven.” But the ability to integrate its store and web
ordering processes, as just one example of IT- based multichannel functionality Fat Face now has at its disposal, was only made possible through a series of strategic IT investments. Almost two years ago the retailer announced a network contract extension with longstanding supplier, Vodat International to rationalise its communications costs (Fat Face slashes call costs, RetailTechnbology.
co.uk, 30 August 2011). The contract extension included new telecommunication connectivity to its head office for increased broadband bandwidth and resilience and ADSL2+ services to its stores.
New Fat Face EPoS system
With its store and head office communications
upgraded, the question it then faced was “putting in place a multichannel architecture,” according to Shepherd. “And how we join up the stores better to our web offering. Previously we couldn’t have visibility of stock and interact with the site in that way.” In fact, the company recognised a shift in
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