Pick n Pay Benefits from a New Retailing Solution
Alan Joch
Facing increased competition, savvier shoppers, and aggressive growth goals, South Africa’s ubiquitous Pick n Pay chain of grocery and general merchandise stores decided the time had come to hone its competitive edge. The old Pick n Pay legacy systems were hampering business operations and were not providing the company with the edge it needed to stay ahead of the competition. A familiar “buy one, get one free” promotion, for example, required someone to manually hard code the relevant pricing changes in five different databases spread throughout the country. For this reason, Pick n Pay took the first step on a five-year journey to roll out a full ERP system throughout the company.
“The legacy systems in place made us question our ability to enact some of our business decisions and processes,” recalls Bronwen Rohland, Director of Supply Chain, Sustainability, Information Services, and e-Tailing for Pick n Pay.
But now, the expansion strategy and the new, modern IT solution that supports it are starting to pay off. “Customers are becoming more selective about where they shop, so it’s important for us to make sure we get every item into our customers’ baskets when they are in our stores,” Rohland says. “We can do that because we know the right items to put on our shelves and can make sure we have sufficient quantities of those products in stock in order to drive sales.”
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July 01, 2010