From a competitive point of view, the modern
EPoS software capabilities that Arcadia is looking to exploit in future include its multilingual and multichannel characteristics. “We are looking at European destinations for new company-owned stores,” reported Clarke. “The second part of the strategic benefits
of the new EPoS is the part it has to play in laying a foundation for future multichannel or ‘omnichannel’ developments,” he continued. “When you look at what’s coming down the line for retail in general, we have to be ready to capitalise on the huge growth we’re seeing in the digital channel, for instance. “Multichannel retailing is already here, where
customers expect to order goods from anywhere – instore, online or on their smartphones.” But he added that Arcadia believes that the ultimate test will be fulfilling an order from stock already held in its stores. “It becomes necessary to have an
understanding of where stock is all over the estate,” agreed Coldicott. “That’s why we always saw the EPoS roll out as creating a strategic platform for the future. The key thing for us is being able to carry out relatively quick trials of new services or functionality in order to know where to invest. “We’re starting to see some of those things
happen, now that we have delivered a platform that is flexible enough for us to try some of them out. These tests enable us to justify upfront how to deliver that. We can try a proof of concept in three stores, say, and manage the orchestration of data and all of the back-end plumbing centrally.” As far as Clarke is concerned, a major
differentiator in today’s multichannel age of retailing is having staff who can offer valuable customer service. “This project has given us the strategic foundation we want to go multichannel,” he stated. “It positions us to be able to deliver what the business wants. “That might be opening a number of new
stores in new markets or our big aspiration, to deliver a true multichannel experience to our customers. That might be through mobile PoS, assisted selling tools like iPads that we could arm our store colleagues with, or anything that gives our customers the same view of our brands wherever they might see us.” Clarke concluded: “The Arcadia and PCMS
partnership has proven to be successful in laying the foundations for our multichannel strategy.”
www.retailtechnology.co.uk Time to resist.
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