Microsoft Dynamics™ AX
Manage Your Operations for Greater Profitability with Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX
white paper
Date: January 15, 2006
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Introduction
As in every other aspect of the business world today, retail businesses are confronted by a multitude of challenges. The trend toward market globalization has opened up new retail market opportunities for businesses of every size and description. To stay ahead of the competition, retailers must effectively manage a multitude of variables, maximize efficiency, and collaborate effectively with trading partners and suppliers around the world. Midsize retailers face the same challenges as their larger, direct competitors—companies that typically have greater resources and better developed technology infrastructures. For example, retailers of all sizes are faced with the same need to carefully monitor and vigilantly maintain inventory levels. Large inventory levels at store and distribution centers are not uncommon due to decentralized requirement planning and the use of older, non-integrated solutions. Market conditions, including the trend toward just-in-time manufacturing, have made it necessary for retailers of all sizes to develop new skill sets and utilize more powerful technology solutions in order to help them manage ever-shorter manufacturing-to-retail processes and timelines. In addition, midsize retailers are having a harder time understanding customer buying and behavior trends, as well as catching the attention of skilled and desirable employees and then retaining them for acceptable periods.
Current Technology Challenges
A number of technology limitations impair the ability of many midsize retailers to compete most effectively. For example, many retailers lack visibility into critical business performance indicators, which some try to alleviate through time-consuming analysis using Microsoft® Office Excel® 2003 or other spreadsheet applications. Some may not be using electronic processes at all, or they may be using older product versions, occasionally in addition to incompatible or non-integrated business systems—a situation that can lead to even more time and effort, potentially costly errors, untrustworthy data, and difficulties gaining complete visibility into business activities and performance. Finally, many midsize retailers struggle with the need for more centralized data processing, and most need better, easier access to information about their businesses as well as better connections between business systems to help them grow or maintain profitability.
The combination of these industry-wide challenges and technology constraints can translate into real problems for business decision makers at every level of a retail organization. The CEO needs solid, real-time data from every level of the business in order to make the most strategic decisions. For the CFO, these concerns may manifest in the form of difficulty hitting profit and revenue targets due to high store operating costs, declining margins, shrinkage, high labor costs, and problems managing growth effectively.
Members of the sales team also need real-time visibility into information such as sales by product and other trends, without which they may be unable to contribute effectively to the overall health of the business. Industry challenges and technology constraints also impact customer service personnel, who may be unable to track transactions in real time or analyze up-to-date business data to understand customer trends and buying habits.
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics™ AX has been specifically designed to help retailers streamline their business operations and better manage products, processes, transactions, and business relationships for greater profitability. Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX can help increase retail profits by boosting operational efficiency, enhancing business insight, and helping better connect people, information, and processes.
In addition, Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX can be easily tailored to meet each retailer’s unique business needs using a wizard-based setup and advanced integration tools. The solution includes key functionality that helps retailers streamline processes and access and analyze critical information from across the entire retail operation. It can also help pinpoint information, so retailers can make better-informed decisions to help their businesses survive—and thrive—against the competition.
The information in the following pages will show how Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX can help retailers manage all the details of their business while staying profitable.
Technology Guidelines for the Retail Industry
Retail industrysolutions can deliver strong business value for the following retail business stakeholders:
- Business leaders, who need access to real-time data on all levels of the organization in order to monitor key performance indicators, correct system downtime and integration problems, and manage staffing and budget issues
- Financial officers, who want to hit profit targets, manage store operating costs, and supervise growth effectively
- Sales personnel and customer service staff, who require the ability to see transactions in real-time to analyze and understand product sales and consumer trends and habits
- Department managers, who need to monitor and manage margins, shrinkage, loss prevention, and labor costs
- Merchandising executives, who want to hit revenue targets and improve customer relations to earn greater customer loyalty
Following is an overview of the types of benefits available to retailers who use a retail services management solution.
Better Inventory and Warehouse Management
Managing the product life cycle, including inventory and warehouse processes, is a crucial aspect of any retail business. Stock, warehouse, and shop floor management and control, production master planning, product building, ordering, and purchasing—each of these processes can involve massive amounts of data that may need to be frequently updated. RSM solutions can help streamline and organize this work.
Increased Visibility into Pricing and Financing
Up-to-date sales, financial, and supply chain data is essential to helping negotiate the best prices, delivery dates, and product placement with suppliers. The improved ability to manage pricing and discounting and respond more quickly to retail opportunities is one of the key motives for investing in a RSM solution.
Improved Sales Tracking and Reporting
Coherent RSM systems can provide overall business intelligence that facilitates critical analysis of company finances, stock positions, consignment situations, and other data from multiple perspectives. RSM solutions can track and report on sales in real time using key performance indicators, as well as provide quick access to information from integrated online and offline systems to support faster and more effective decisions.
Heightened Customer Satisfaction
Quick access to the latest information about a customer, product, order, or payment can help retailers fill their shelves with the products customers want, when they want them, while helping customer service employees improve service levels. Retailers can then connect customers to the latest information available about their company and its products and services using the Web, expanding the convenience of buying and the opportunity to buy for customers.
Empowering Retailers with Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX matches the needs of both private capital and franchise retail chains. The solution has been developed and modified over a period of many years and is designed to meet the needs of midsize retailers across the globe.
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX can help increase margins through effective price and campaign management and help optimize stock levels at store and distribution centers through integrated supply chain services. To illustrate how Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX supports retail companies, let’s look at a representative sample of business activities:
- Manage the product life cycle efficiently
- Run effective sales campaigns
- Set up and control pricing and discounts
- Monitor and control sales activities
- Work with customer, product, order, and payment information
Streamline Product Life Cycle Management
To help manage the product life cycle more efficiently, Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX streamlines business processes and centralizes data processing. Automated inventory and warehouse processes help move products from distribution centers to stores more efficiently. Real-time information about exact inventory levels at stores and distribution centers helps optimize stock and plan replenishment accurately.
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX also provides remote access to warehouse processes in order to help streamline stocking, restocking, discarding, and returning procedures. Advanced loss prevention helps retailers assess and reduce the margin of error in their stores by tracking the status of returned items quickly and accurately from customers to the original vendor.
Manage More Effective Campaigns
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX also helps retailers run more effective sales events such as campaigns and promotions. Retailers are able to plan and organize an unlimited number of different promotions and sales events in advance by creating campaigns with specific dates and identifiers. Campaigns can be rolled out for the entire company or on a store level.
With a centralized database, companies can maintain more effective control over campaigns. The campaign can be set up with special prices and discounts on specific products or a range of products. To gain insight into the effectiveness of the events, retailers can analyze and generate reports based on campaign-related sales data.
Set Up and Control Flexible Pricing and Discounts
Retailerscan set up different sales processes for any individual product, category, store, or chain and handle discounts more flexibly by setting up a variety of discount formats, such as multibuy or mix-and-match options used by many POS systems. With centralized data processing, retailers can manage cash registers from one location; change discount levels; maintain prices, markdowns, and discounts on different levels; and changeperiods quickly and easily, as well as print accurate price labels based on price changes and special offers. To help manage dynamic pricing and respond quickly to opportunities, retailers can also define reports based on data selection criteria across multiple data sources and access them online to follow store performance by location, department, employee, or product.
Gain Real-time Visibility of Sales Activities
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX helps improve margins with business intelligence that enhances a retailer’s ability to analyze critical data from a variety of perspectives. It helps retailers make critical decisions about the health of their businesses quickly and effectively by tracking sales in real time using key performance indicators. It can also help to access information quickly from integrated online and offline POS systems. Advanced tracking and reporting capabilities can analyze data by product, store, campaign, location, employee, supplier, and customer to provide deeper insight into sales performance and customer buying trends—information that can help retailers respond more effectively to diverse market needs and changing customer lifestyles.
Access Information Easily When, Where, and How It’s Needed
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX provides retailers with the means to link all business activities across multiple channels to help them connect customers, suppliers, and employees to up-to-date, Web-based information about their company, products, and services. By accumulating and analyzing information more effectively, Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX can automate logistic flows between all company stores and warehouses. It can also provide quick access to the latest customer, product, order, and payment information to help customer service employees improve service levels and build customer loyalty.
Enhance Business Efficiency
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX automates and streamlines manual and critical business processes to help retailers move products faster and boost operational efficiency throughout the supply chain. Integrated supply chain processes eliminate data re-entry and support efficient management of product life cycles and optimized stock levels at stores and distribution centers. The solution helps retailers better manage campaigns, inventories, pricing, costs, and discounts to drive more profitable operations, and it centralizes the management and tracking of transaction, customer, item, and employee information.
To enhance product life cycle management, Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX provides the following functionality:
- Automated inventory control and warehouse processes to move goods efficiently from and between distribution centers and stores
- Tracking of exact, real-time inventory levels at stores and distribution centers to help create the best replenishment plan
- Automatic calculation of delivery dates based on predefined trade parameters.
- Management of delivery dates for complex orders using a mix of cross-docking, internal movement, or vendor-ordering activities
- Assessment and reduction of loss by tracking the status of returned items quickly and accurately from customers to original vendors
- Mobile access to warehouse processes for stocking and restocking, discarding, and returning
- Definition of campaign distribution plans to push items from central warehouses to stores
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX can also automatically collect price change data and then integrate with third-party systemsto create barcodes. For example, use Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX to access and use up-to-date sales, financial, and supply chain data; assign a range of sales prices and discounts to any individual product, category, store, or chain; define how long individual sales prices and discounts should apply; and print price labels.
Retailers can efficiently manage and track transaction, customer, item, and employee information from a central location from within a Microsoft Dynamics AX environment. Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX helps optimize these activities with tools that provide the following:
- Organization and maintenance of customer records such as price and discount agreements, multiple address information, and house/invoice accounts.
- Management of an unlimited number of tender types and definition of a unique link between the credit card used and a chart of account
- Control of credit limits for each sale to help reduce loss
- The ability to issue gift vouchers directly at the cash register, and track them centrally by store
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX also can link all transactions from multiple POS systems to individual employees; manage exchange rates, fees, and multiple currencies in one location; and manage multiple value-added tax and other tax obligations efficiently.
Transform Information into Insight
An integrated, flexible solution, Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX provides tools and functionality that help give employees at all levels access to the critical information they need to do their job more efficiently. This can transform mountains of disorganized information into valuable business intelligence that supports well-informed decisions and that can help retailers spot evolving customer trends fast.
Access to critical sales and other business data can help companies analyze their performance from a variety of angles to manage processes and transactions better, increase service levels, and monitor work in real time. Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX can help track and analyze data by product, store, campaign, location, employee, supplier, and customer in order to gain insight into sales performance and buying trends. The solution can access information quickly from integrated online and offline POS systems and track sales in real time to help retailers make decisions quickly and effectively.
To help retailers make the most of information from across their business, Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX provides users with the ability to do the following:
- Manage product information, such as quantities, prices, and discounts, centrally—either individually or for all items in all stores
- Calculate accurate delivery dates based on up-to-the-minute information from various locations
- Provide complete visibility into stock at all stores
- Restock based on automatic requirement planning
Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX also can connect customers, employees, and supply chain partners to information and processes about products and services to improve satisfaction in all areas of the business. For example, providing customer service employees with access to customer, product, order, and payment information can help increase services levels. And Retail Chain Manager for Microsoft Dynamics AX can help connect customers directly to the most up-to-date, Web-based information about a company and its products and services.