Tag: ETP
ETP Recognized With Retail Leadership Award At Asia Retail Congress 2016
ETP International, a leading provider of Omni-channel Retail Solutions in Asia, India and the Middle East, is proud to be recognized with the ‘Retail Leadership Award’ at the 12th Asia, Africa, GCC Retail & Shopping Centre Congress, held in Mumbai on 19th February 2016.
ETP’s 25 years in the retail space across more than 20 countries has resulted in ETP building an enterprise class, scalable, and secure omni-channel platform for large to mid-sized retailers. With over 300 global brands and more than 25,000 stores running on ETP systems, ETP has proven its leadership in both innovation and its ability to deliver. Founded in 1988, ETP is the leading Omni-channel Retail Solutions Company headquartered in Singapore and present in more than 20 countries across Asia Pacific, India and the Middle East. ETP has executed over 500 enterprise software projects at 25,000+ stores and 100+ warehouses and factories.
“We are very happy to be recognized for our leadership in the retail industry, at this moment in time when we are helping retailers transform from old brick and mortar models to a fully omni-channel model and embrace the new age consumer”, said Naresh Ahuja, Chairman and CEO, ETP International.
Receiving the award, Mr. Raj Jagasia, Executive Director, ETP International said, “ETP thanks its customers and partners for the long-standing relationships that have contributed to ETP’s remarkable success in the retail technology space. Through continuous research and development, ETP remains committed towards building forward looking innovations in Omni-channel Retail Solutions to help our customers drive operational excellence and achieve profitable growth, thereby getting it right in retail.”
The winners have been selected following a rigorous selection process. The Asia Africa GCC Retail & Shopping Centre Congress, represented by 40 countries from across Asia and the world, is a global platform to promote world-class retail practices that are a reflection of the vitality of retailing during a time of reinvention, as well as its increasing significance to 21st century business. The awards were handed out in the presence of company chairpersons, presidents and CEOs of leading international and national retail chains and brands and various industry thought leaders.
Omni-Channel Inventory Management Solutions
As the modern day consumer is spoilt for choice, it poses a challenge for retailers to zero down on their preferred channel of shopping. Customers interact with multiple channels and switch between them interchangeably to suit their demands. For retailers, this translates into the need to ease the process of finding the desired product across channels, for the consumers by anticipating the demand and optimizing the cross-channel inventory accordingly so that no opportunities are lost. To achieve this, retail businesses need to look at changing the way they think about and deal with their cross-channel inventory management.
The current omni-channel business models demand for a flexible and seamless inventory management at the core of the supply chain. A versatile inventory flow, that accommodates the frequent changes in consumer preferences across channels – be it physical stores or e-commerce – is essential. Retailers need to work on 2 main factors: allocation and replenishment.
The solution for retailers to tackle this is a single comprehensive omni-channel suite that seamlessly integrates channels. Such a system can enable examination of the inventory pool and allocate or replenish the stock based on pre-defined business rules and the business intelligence data acquired from across the different shopping channels. Based on analysis of the data captured, retailers can define strategies to manage cross-channel inventory. Thus, the solution can help to eliminate hurdles in inventory management and enable retailers to have a comprehensive view of their cross-channel supply chain. They can respond to trends quickly and optimize performance of their merchandise and assortments across the physical and online channels, reduce markdowns as well as satisfy customer expectations.
ETP V5 Omni-Channel Retail Suite consists of an enterprise-class multi-channel, multi-currency, and multi-lingual inventory management software solution which addresses the key needs of this dynamic industry such as merchandise management, sourcing, e-commerce order management, warehousing, sales, inventory management, replenishment planning, procurement, allocation and distribution. The system allows retailers to link up with the ETP Merchandise and Assortment planning solutions to execute their procurement based on the OTB Plan. This ensures that they buy right, distribute, allocate and deliver right.
ETP – Helping Lifestyle Retailers Get It Right In Retail
The luxury and lifestyle retail market is the beacon of the future, with several international brands vying to design, develop and deliver the fashionable goods and services that consumers want. To do so, they are being compelled to modernize their supply chain, to track inventory performance and to spur consumer interest in products and promotions. Obsolescence of existing systems, the predicament of whether to build or to buy and the need to seamlessly integrate cross-channel operations are the major challenges lifestyle retailers encounter.
Working with the leaders in luxury and lifestyle retail across Asia Pacific, India and the Middle East for more than a quarter of a century, ETP has garnered a vast experience and expertise of unscrambling such retail tech tangles. It has understood the business needs of lifestyle retailers from across the 3 most diverse regions in the world and developed an enterprise class, scalable and secure platform that seamlessly fulfils these needs with a prime focus on increasing demand and optimizing costs to improve bottom line.
Some of the noteworthy business benefits delivered by ETP to lifestyle retail brands through its omni channel retail solutions in order to help them transcend customer expectations and increase customer loyalty are:
- One seamless solution that can integrate with existing, third-party e-commerce and ERP solutions, across different store formats and business models
- Superior customer experience with quick checkout
- Quick access to customer buying history, which helps the marketing and merchandise departments analyze customer needs and buying patterns
- Option to define promotions centrally and establish controls on how to deploy them across channels
- Targeted promotions and instant gratification based on customer profiles
- Access to KPI dashboard to define and track sales/store-staff performance as per assigned targets
- Ability to capture actionable customer feedback
- Ease of inventory management, distribution and complete inventory visibility regardless of location or time
- Brand, store and category level analysis of sales revenue and cost of goods sold
- Complete visibility and centralized control, modification of feature roll-outs
- Business stability and scalability to launch new stores while maintaining a uniform brand experience and quality customer service
Stock Right, Using The Right OTB Planning Tool
Efficient inventory management is vital for ensuring that an appropriate level of stock is on hand at the right time for the amount of targeted sales to be realized. Having too much inventory or the wrong kind of inventory during crucial sales periods can ebb your cash flow and reduce profits with the involuntary but obligatory need to offer too many markdowns. On the other hand, if you under buy and under stock and consequently miss sales opportunities as a result of that, then you are not banking your potential profit. Similarly, merchandise may get delivered at an inappropriate time when it isn’t needed and may be unavailable when it is essential. All of these will affect sales and inventory turnover.
A retailer can be sure to stock the right amount of the right products at the right time in the right place by using an effective Open-To-Buy (OTB) plan. Open-To-Buy (OTB) is defined as the merchandise budgeted for purchase during a certain time period, but has not been ordered yet. It is also the process of planning merchandise sales and purchases.
OTB can be calculated in either units or dollars. It is essentially the difference between how much inventory is required to achieve targeted sales and how much is actually available. Consider maintaining an OTB plan for your business as a whole, but also plan for each category of merchandise that you stock. The plan can be maintained on paper, in a spreadsheet or by employing and using one of the right Open-To-Buy software programs/tools.
The Open-To-Buy formula is,
For example, a retailer has an inventory level of $130,000 on December 1st and planned $115,000 end-of-month inventory for December 31st. The planned sales for the store are $64,000 with $1,050 in planned markdowns. Therefore, the retailer has $41,050 Open-To-Buy at retail. Multiply that by the initial markup to arrive at the OTB at cost. So, if the markup is 40%, then the Open-To-Buy at cost will be $16,420.
Keep in mind that many of the figures on your inventory plan are only guidelines. A good thumb rule for business is, if your actual ending inventory is within five percent of your plan, you are doing very well.
It is recommended for OTB to be maintained and monitored for each category separately. Further, OTB should be calculated and monitored not only on retail price, but also keeping a track on the price ranges thereby, getting the required quantity mix across all the ranges. It is important to capture pending deliveries – in transit and any outstanding purchase orders in the OTB calculation. It is also important to close the opened Purchase Orders (PO) if there are no more deliveries expected in that PO, so that it is not added to pending deliveries thereby, leading to an incorrect OTB calculation. In order to take advantage of special buys or to add new products, some of the OTB budget should be held back. This also allows the retailer to react to fast-selling items and quickly replenish supply.
ETP Omni-Channel Retail Merchandise Planning solution improves cash flow with intuitive Open-To-Buy (OTB) planning, helping you to buy right and on time. The cross-channel configuration fine-tunes OTB planning to take timely in-season action. OTB begins with the planning process, is future oriented, provides guidance on how much to buy, and provides benchmarks for evaluating progress and adjusting future plans. The opening stock and OTB values are displayed in the Option plan. These values are auto populated in the plan and therefore there will be no need of creating OTB plan in future.
Focus On The Four Fear Factors Of Festive Shopping
There is plenty of advice out there for retailers on how to get ready for the shopping frenzy that they experience and if managed right, enjoy during the festive shopping season every year. Buzzwords such as mobile optimization and omni-channel experiences are good to hear, but when it comes down to milking the cow during the most revenue generating part of the year, the transaction is at the heart of the holiday season shopping experience.
Customers worry about price, secure transactions and right product availability when spending their festive dollars both online and offline (in-store) and they are depending upon you to dispel those fears. For retailers, that means addressing the four fear factors that concern shoppers:
Product: To realize maximum profits, it is of optimum essence to plan your pre-season and in-season omni-channel merchandise and inventory right. Even at a time when the offline and online are merging to enhance shopper experiences, customers prefer to complete their festive shopping hassle free, one stop. So it is vital to stock the right product in the right channel and the right quantity at the right time. This will also help you to get through the entire festive season effectively, avoid stockout situations which usually result in unhappy or lost customers and ensure that you do not end up with excess stock at the end of the season.
Pricing: With many retailers offering similar products across multiple channels, shoppers are spoilt for options. In this situation, price usually becomes the deciding factor between a sale and a no-sale. Hence, along with the right inventory, you need to price your merchandise right across each channel. Additionally, you need to analyze the profit margins on individual seasonal products. If you can’t make a profit after the season is over with the left over merchandise, you may want to consider offering a markdown on the time sensitive products during the season.
Promotions: A steady number of shoppers are seen to be actively planning their festive shopping early, looking for deals and promotions to compare their best buying options. They have more locations to purchase from, both online and in-store including pop-ups, more discounts to compare and more information at their fingertips about the products they want. Hence, it is imperative that you plan, roll-out and modify your festive promotions and campaigns early as well as on the fly in-season.
Protection: With a plethora of transactions taking place due to the rise in shopping activity during the festive season, it is necessary to protect shoppers’ payment card data and ensure secure transactions across channels. You must take measures to make payment card transactions safe for your customers, no matter which channel they use for buying from your retail business, by employing a payment application that helps you do just that by protecting the heart of the festive shopping experience – the transaction.
ETP’s Omni-Channel Retail Solutions can help you put to rest all the above fear factors effectively and efficiently. The ETP Merchandise Planner helps you plan and manage cross-channel merchandise and inventory taking cues from previous seasons and industry data. It also enables you to manage pricing for all your products across each channel. The ETP Accelerator equips you to define, plan and roll-out retail promotions based on your business rules, and start, stop or modify them on the fly. The ETP V5.5 Omni-Channel POS solution is certified as PA-DSS v3.1 compliant by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC). It means that retailers can now feel more secure with the ETP V5.5 POS solutions to provide a secure payment card-related transaction process for their end users.
Payment Card Data Security At The Point-Of-Sale (POS)
As retail businesses adopt more omni-channel retailing methods such as e-commerce, m-commerce, social selling, and mobile payments, standard online and mobile payment frauds also pose a problem, exposing confidential information and credit card data of the customers. Hence, businesses and governments are under increased pressure to prioritize data security. To address such issues related to financial data theft and hacking, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) was formed on December 15, 2004, that released version 1.0 of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a proprietary information security standard for organizations to increase controls around cardholder data.
PCI DSS represents a minimum set of control objectives which may be enhanced by local, regional and sector laws and regulations. Additionally, legislation or regulatory requirements may require specific protection of personally identifiable information or other data elements (for example, cardholder name), or define an entity’s disclosure practices related to consumer information. Examples include legislation related to consumer data protection, privacy, identity theft, or data security.
The Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) is a subset of the PCI DSS. The PA-DSS applies to software vendors and others who develop payment applications that store, process, or transmit cardholder data as part of authorization or settlement, where these payment applications are sold, distributed, or licensed to third parties. In order to ensure that all sensitive cardholder authentication data is secure, PCI requires merchants, banks, and all other parties that use a third-party application for processing payments to select one that meets the PA-DSS standard.
The following chart details what is required to be PCI DSS compliant (and therefore what a payment application must support to facilitate a customer’s PCI DSS compliance).
The ETP Store Omni-channel POS solution is certified as PA-DSS v3.2 compliant by the PCI SSC. It means that retailers can now feel more secure with the ETP V5.5 POS solutions to provide a secure payment card-related transaction process for their end users.
Being PCI DSS compliant means that, ETP V5 software does not retain, block or store and securely delete any sensitive payment card validation data, provides secure authentication features and facilitates secure remote access to the payment application while maintaining a log of all payment application activity. The PA-DSS certification for ETP V5 Suite is especially significant for customers of ETP Store (POS) and ETP MobileStore (Mobile POS) solution, as ETP V5 is one of very few retail software solutions to be PA-DSS compliant on the market.
“Keeping our customers secure and successful is the number one priority for ETP. We continually push beyond the ordinary and develop omni-channel retail software solutions with secure payment applications that protect wireless transmissions, facilitate secure network implementation and remote software updates and encrypt sensitive cardholder data over public networks,” said Naresh Ahuja, Chairman & CEO, ETP Group. “PA-DSS accreditation is by no means a simple task. However, by accomplishing it, we make it easier for our customers around the world to apply for PCI PA-DSS certification, where the use of compliant software solutions is a key element of demonstrating their ability to protect sensitive card data.”
For more information on ETP V5.5 Omni-channel POS solutions, click here.
Team ETP Shares Its Domain Expertise And Builds Valuable Partnerships
ETP has, over the years, participated extensively at industry events and trade shows focused on retail technology solutions. At these events, ETP has been constantly building long-term partnerships with market leaders, customers and prospects in the retail space. Through its various engagements at retail and technology events, ETP has been sharing its invaluable domain expertise acquired over more than 25 years of being associated with the retail industry across the Asia-Pacific, India and the Middle East.
With the fourth largest population in the world and a booming economy that is spurred by a growing number of millennial smartphone users (i.e., in the age group of 18 to 30 years) connected to the Internet, Indonesia is fast approaching a “big bang” for ecommerce in terms of scale and profitability. ETP was the Main Sponsor at the recently concluded Customer 360 – From Offline To Online – How To Get Your Company Ready event held in Jakarta, Indonesia on 27th October 2015. At the event, the ETP team interacted with leading Indonesian retailers from different verticals such as PT. Mitra Adiperkasa (MAP), Everbest, Lee Cooper Indonesia, Depo Bangunan, Pasaraya, Kawan Lama, Electrolux, CODE inc., Trikomsel and many more, to share and understand perspectives on how to navigate the dynamic demographics where online and offline merge in retail and how retailers can gain from the benefits that e-commerce offers in the ‘brick-and-mortal’ retail world.
Naresh Ahuja, Chairman & CEO, ETP Group, presented his views on the emerging retail technology for retailers to activate seamless operations that control all the customer touch-points and enhance the omni-channel brand experience.
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| ETP booth at Customer 360 event |
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| Naresh Ahuja (centre), Chariman & CEO ETP Group with Arun Samak, CIO, PT. Mitra Adiperkasa (MAP) and David Irawan, CIO, B&B Incorporated |
ETP participated at the 17th Asia Pacific Retailers Convention & Exhibition held from 28th-30th October 2015 at the impressive Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City in the Philippines. The team successfully networked with several leading retailers from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines such as APRINDO, Primer Group, Rustan’s Group, PowerMAC, BLIMS Fine Furniture, Watch Republic and many more, to exchange their thoughts and learnings on how omni-channel retailing is disrupting the world of retail and on the new business models, strategies and technologies necessary for expanding retail business in Asia and in the global market.
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| ETP at the 17th Asia Pacific Retailers Convention & Exhibition, The Philippines |
ETP also attended the Middle East Retail Forum and the InRetail Summit events held in Dubai, U.A.E. from 27th-28th October and from 14th-15th September 2015, respectively. Both these events brought together the who’s who of retail in the Middle East. Discussions and networking sessions at the events showcased the trends and opportunities that are making the Middle East an attractive marketplace for leading retailers across the globe, the retail dynamics in the GCC, customer centricity and omni-channel retail. The ETP team wrested optimum leverage of the opportunities that the events provided to strengthen its existing relationships with leading retailers from the region and build new ones.
At the India Retail Forum held in Mumbai, India on 15th-16th September 2015 that witnessed a gathering of more than 700 of the region’s sharpest minds in retail and retail realty businesses, ETP’s team of domain experts connected, collaborated and created outstanding concepts for harnessing the future of retail in the omni-channel era and building the roadmap for customer centric retail organizations through technological innovations that enable the modern retailers to delve deep into the consumers’ minds and offer them a hassle free, grand, unified shopping experience across the ‘phygital’ retail landscape.
ETP was the Technology Insights Partner at the South East Asian Retail Innovation & Technology Summit held in Jakarta, Indonesia on 16th-17th October 2015. At the event, esteemed speakers and delegates from retail, realty, technology and finance businesses shared their experiences and knowledge on investment opportunities, channel strategies, product marketing, supply chain and technology innovations for the mobile-first generation.
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| Varun Suri, Program Manager, ETP Group speaking at the event |
Varun Suri, Program Manager, ETP Group, presented his views on Business and IT Innovations Asian Leadership – Focusing on Demand Chain Management. He emphasized on the importance of customer-driven operations rather than supplier-driven operations. Consumers do not wish to spend precious time in deciphering complex promotions or applications, they would rather pay more and be instantly gratified. Ease and simplicity needs to be permeated in every retail process to deliver on customer expectations.
Omni-Channel Technology Solutions For Your Retail Business
Retail has been transformed by technology – driving greater personalization for consumers, more conversions for retailers, and more traffic on multiple retail channels. Omni-channel retailing has become the norm in the industry and customers expect access to retail brands through multiple channels, at their convenience. Omni channel retail solutions continue to grow further as customers embrace emerging technology and its multiple access points. Your omni-channel presence and perceptivity, and not just your product, make or break your brand image today.
Customers expect a uniform and meaningful experience across all retail channels and instant connectivity to retail brands regardless of how and when they connect with the physical stores. They expect retailers to know what they want and how they like to make their purchases. Shopper expectations identified in an recent IBM survey showed 59 percent of shoppers want retailers to demonstrate that they “understand” them, 64 percent expect retailers to know what products they like, 61 percent want retailers to know the types of offers they prefer, and 59 percent want retailers to tell them when frequently purchased items are going on sale. Further, 54 percent said they expect retailers to know if they are new or returning customers, and 53 percent want retailers to maintain a cross-channel history of all purchases so they can receive personalized offers.
Thus, the need of the hour for retailers is to get closer to the customers through all channels, offline and online. Retailers need to drive traffic to the brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce platforms simultaneously. Marketing campaigns must be aligned to the right retail channel with the right message at the right time and right price. Customer data can be used to provide predictive analytics for a strong promotions foundation. Incorporating integrated technology allows enterprises to explore successful offerings that link online and physical shopping.
Omni channel retail solutions such as the ETP V5 are fundamentally integrated with omni-channel capabilities that simplify business processes and offer retailers the power to create highly targeted, immensely effective and easily measurable marketing promotions; thus, allowing retailers to determine their return on investment (ROI) and improve their bottom line.
ETP V5 Omni channel retail software solutions comprise of the omni-channel store solutions, omni-channel promotions planning, omni-channel merchandise planning and omni-channel business analytics.
Also Read: Omni-Channel Success: Engaging With Customers In A Consistent, Personalized Way Across All Channels
Retailers – The Sleeping Giants Of e-Commerce
– Naresh Ahuja
At ETP, as we work with retailers across 20 countries and over 25,000 stores and 500 brands, we have seen tremendous depth in their skills in merchandising, brand management, sales and supply chain management, their understanding of their diverse customers and employees, their ability to manage cycles and seasons and still produce a profit, their infrastructure management, their cash management, so on and so forth.
In the last one year, we have seen these giants waking up to their potential in the eCommerce space. With all their powerful management and execution capability, they could be the game-changers of this new “omni-channel” retail world. Like all large organisations with a legacy and systems and processes in place, they may not be as nimble as the pure-play eCommerce players, however they seem to have got it now and are ramping up their organisations’ technology, culture and capability to play the eCommerce game. At the same time, the eCommerce players have grown and are struggling with the lack of the same competencies that the larger retailers have.
It is a fascinating new battle front and the next couple of years will tell all. My guess is that the winners will be the ones who leverage the core competencies of retail and deploy the technological savviness of eCommerce.
This article has been written by:
Naresh Ahuja, Chairman and CEO, ETP Group
Naresh as the Founder, Chairman and CEO of the ETP Group leads the company with a clear focus on bringing enduring value to customers through best practices mirrored in software applications. Spanning 25 years of focus on retail domain expertise and IP development, ETP today, has a strong customer base of market leaders in more than 20 countries across Asia Pacific, India and the Middle East, and is on its way to becoming a global leader in Retail Software Solutions.
