Information systems are becoming increasingly important to every aspect of retailing - managing suppliers, purchasing product, controlling inventory and store replenishment, processing sales data and managing individual customers. IT is therefore an increasing area of capital and operating cost.
It is imperative that IT performance is at the highest levels and that the investment in IT resources generates value. PA's carefully constructed blend of IT services span strategy to implementation and are specifically designed to support every stage of the 'IT value life cycle'.
Our IT services include:
- Strategy
- Management and sourcing
- Infrastructure
- Systems solutions.
Decision systems
Retail is a hugely complex business, with the challenge of managing and optimizing sales, margins and the costs of thousands of products, millions of units of stock, hundreds of stores and the supporting infrastructure.
PA has world-class capabilities in developing systems to enable rapid and high-quality decision making. In fields where even expert views were that performance was close to best practice, we have achieved astonishing breakthroughs in performance as a result of our decision systems, for example, doubling the capacity of the UK's largest port, with no capital investment, and increasing by 30% the throughput of Europe's most efficient automotive production lines.
These skills are highly applicable to areas of retail such as inventory management and store replenishment.
Track record
WH Smith (High Street)
Transforming IT performance
WH Smith (High Street) is the well-known stores division of the WH Smith Group in the UK. Competition and constant pressure on margins means that high-quality business information is vital to retail business. PA worked with WH Smith to help them exploit their IT more effectively. It was recognized that improvements were needed to reduce the cost of their IT function and change the way business users and the information systems (IS) department worked together. The result of PA's work is an IS operation with a clear understanding of the information needs of the business and the capability to meet them. Furthermore, cost reductions of over 10% have been achieved.
UK fashion retailer
Systems selection
The HR function for this retailer was performing badly, with inadequate systems at the heart of the problem. However, previous attempts to select a new HR system had failed twice to reach a recommendation agreed by the Board. In five weeks, PA reviewed system options, and identified and recommended a practical, low-cost choice of HR system, consistent with the business requirements and HR strategy. PA is now managing the HR system's implementation and related process design, configuration, and organizational change. The program is on track to deliver the targeted benefits, and the system selected was a fraction of the cost of the previous recommendations.
