Video: Retailer Operations and Packaged applications!
Most Retailers operate in two,fundamentally different set of modes. These modes have a direct impact on the package applications they choose. In this video blog i touch upon this difference and the subsequent impact.
Transcript:
'Hi everyone, welcome to infosysblogs my name is Venu kotamraju and I am a principal consultant with Infosys, Today I wanted to talk about a typical retail organizations and what the variety of operations are and the impact it has on its applications.
Retailers engage in two basic form of transactions one that involves all the items sold through their stores, also known as direct or merchandise operations, which requires sourcing the items from the suppliers, stocking them in regional warehouses and distributions centers and finally stocking the individual stores with these products, and all the operations surrounding this 'selling through the store' operation.
Typically most retailers have used applications such as Retek or what is also known as Oracle Retail for managing store operations which includes setting up the stores, stocking them, tracking inventory, making sure items are marked up or down and the final sale through the point of sale system and tracking the financial data back to financial system.
Other set of systems are corporate systems which deal with human resources or financials, corporate procurement is often called expense or indirect. These two set of systems usually stand alone, there is no single package vendor who has integrated them yet, even Oracle eBusiness suite is often preferred for expense and merchandise operations is kept out of it. Reasons for this are numerous if not historical, point of sale system has large number of transactions which are not needed in that detail in an ERP, hence usually point of sale system is outside an ERP system.
This understanding of what is merchandise and expense is important for procurement or financial systems and retailers employ different packages or applications for them.
You can read more on this topic on my blog at infosysblogs.com where I cover this and other retail topics. Thank you.'
Previous Post in this thread -http://www.infosysblogs.com/oracle/2009/03/video_understanding_retailers.html
Comments
Venu, could you help me understand the difference.
I agree that POS is kept out of ERP. However, corporate applications that you mentioned are very much part of the ERP. Eg. SAP IS Retail covers store operations and SAP ERP covers the other one and they are integrated.
Posted by: Venkat Iyer | July 11, 2009 2:15 AM
Hi Venkat,
Good Point!
Both Oracle and SAP bought fiercely over Retek and since then acquired many products. Oracle obtained Retek and then Profitlogic and SAP acquired khimetrics for retail price and promotions and Triversity for point of sale. Both product vendors are now claiming a point of integration.
I think while Oracle started from scratch, SAP has followed a model of adding incremental functionalities so might be better integrated.
My stress in the blog was this aspect of core ERP not covering the 'enterprise' resources for a Retailer. Also both product vendors have reached a point of integration through acquisitions.
The industry focus towards Retail is definitely on the rise and should see much stronger integration.
Posted by: Venu | July 12, 2009 4:25 AM