Retail Technology Strategy & Application Selection

We develop a 3-5 year technology roadmap based on your business strategy.

We develop a 3-5 year technology roadmap based on your business strategy, typically including recommendation of ERP* vs. Best of Breed** vs. development of existing systems.

An essential component of retail technology planning is a roadmap: a clear view of the retail applications needed to support the business over the following three years, of how they will fit together, and of the business benefits they will deliver.

This is based on the business strategy, typically documented in a workshop with the executive team.

The combined experience of our retail operations and technology teams, covering all parts of the retail enterprise (stores, logistics, buying and merchandising, multi-channel, marketing and finance) and all of the applications commonly used by retailers, enables us to determine the right solutions for our clients. Over many years of successful retail technology planning we have developed a very effective approach to answering the following questions:

Will our applications support the business in 3-5 years' time?
- Scale and growth
- New function and services needed
- Rapidly changing business needs
What changes are needed, and by when?
Should we enhance or replace?
If replace, should it be with an ERP* or best of breed** packages?
How should we integrate the solutions and should we follow a SOA*** approach?
Which specific solutions should we select?
What delivery roadmap? What costs/tiime frame?
How will our applications map look in three years' time?
How will we resource and manage the programme?
What business value will this deliver?

We have delivered many end-to-end retail technology roadmaps, enabling our clients to deliver their business strategy. This means that we bring deep knowledge of best practices in retail enterprise architecture, process and organisation, as well as all the major retail/ecommerce applications and vendors.

The work is often followed by a detailed package selection which determines the best vendor to deliver the chosen application options. Examples include a Merchandise Management System (MMS), a merchandise planning solution, a Warehouse Management System (WMS), an Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP)* and integration technologies.

* An ERP system is an end to end integrated system from a single supplier such as SAP.

** Best of breed is an approach using applications from specialist vendors, giving very good function but requiring integration of each separate application

*** SOA is Service Oriented Architecture, an approach which creates re-usable technology components that can be used by multiple applications

Rapid 'Health Check' IT Review

We quickly review the ‘health’ of a retailer’s IT, typically to provide senior management or a financial investor an independent view of the current state of IT. Our work includes a review of:

Functional capability and scalability of applications
Hosting and infrastructure
Integration approach
Project implementation and software delivery process
Support services and processes
Organisation effectiveness
IT planning and budgeting

This delivers a:

Traffic light (red, amber, green) view of the applications within each main business area covering function, scalability, support, integration, and flexibility
Issues, risk and recommendations for hardware, hosting and support
Overview of costs, compared with retail benchmarks
Organisation and IT process improvements
Quick wins and longer term opportunities

Please contact Will Treasure or call +44 (0)20 7961 3200 to discuss your requirements.

Clients

"Javelin Group used a very effective process to select the right solutions for us. Their knowledge of retail best practices, understanding of the technologies available, and assistance in negotiating with vendors were particularly valuable. We were impressed with the results."

Chris Manson, Managing Director, Sit-Up TV.

"We were impressed by Javelin Group's ability to review our IT applications, infrastructure, processes and organisation across the whole business and with their knowledge of retail best practice business process and IT."

Sheila Wye, Finance Director, Ann Summers.

"Javelin Group has demonstrated a wealth of experience in the development of our technology strategy. Through their thorough understanding of retail, its processes and the technology marketplace they have been instrumental in identifying, selecting and negotiating the right solutions all backed by a solid business case definition. Their depth of experience and professionalism meant they were able to address our technology, process and organisational needs across the entire business, from buying and merchandising through distribution, supply chain and store operations."

Robert Adams, Finance Director, Poundland.

"Javelin Group carried out a rapid selection for a WMS for the whole of Carphone Warehouse Group, with first implementation in Spain. The team used their operational and software knowledge very effectively, and were able to give a good recommendation within six weeks of commencing. We subsequently engaged Javelin Group to project manage and provide 'best practice' process support for the implementation. I am pleased with the work they did, and have continued to use them to support our logistics development."

Giles Harvey, Carphone Warehouse Group Supply Chain Director.