19 November 2009

Argility is helping South African retailer Cape Union Mart meet its ongoing business needs with a complete retail management solution to take it into the future.

Cape Union Mart in South Africa is an example of a long-established business (dating back over 75 years) that has moved ahead with great success, thanks to a forward-looking policy on the part of top management. This has resulted in the company evolving from a general merchandise supplier to become a well-known brand that provides specialist products into new target markets. The company’s IT systems have been constantly upgraded to cope with expansion from just a handful of branches to the present figure of 91, treating the brands as separate business units.

Cape Union Mart was already using the Argility Merchandising solution as its core platform, but has recently deployed Argility Live Backoffice to achieve cost-effective improvements in reporting, management and workflow without the need for on-site installation of software at individual stores.

“Cape Union Mart has a long-term relationship with Argility and UCS that goes back many years,” says Argility’s MD Lester Aderem. “The customer’s innovative policies for their business and technology solutions means that we have provided consulting over many years to ensure that their chosen solutions meet their business needs. Argility Live Backoffice, integrated into a successful Argility Merchandising solution, has built a platform that meets all the customer’s requirements and puts in place a foundation for future growth.”

Kennith Barlow, Cape Union Mart’s team leader, acknowledges how the Argility solution supports the business, citing that having the right information allows him to make the right decisions. “With Argility Live Backoffice reporting the information from our existing Argility Merchandising software, we can get instant views of stock movement in terms of sales and transfers from the warehouse,” he says. “This helps greatly when we are running a sales campaign or opening a new store, for example.

“The Argility solution also provides excellent support for supply chain management, as it has a very effective and powerful way of predicting the need in individual stores for specific products, based on recent or even historical trends. This helps us run the business and make sure customers’ needs are met – especially when there are exceptional runs on specific products.”

Cape Union Mart is also planning further upgrades to its store systems. “A next step which is being considered is to deploy Argility ActiveRetail as a POS solution to all the stores,” says Aderem. “That would provide Cape Union Mart with an end-to-end solution that meets all their needs for now and the foreseeable future.”

By deploying the right solution on top of an already proven and successful platform, Cape Union Mart is well positioned to manage the continued growth of its business. At the same time, the company has achieved improved service and reduced operational costs without limiting its flexibility or agility when it comes to responding to customer needs in new markets.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2009 edition of Retailspeak magazine.

Add a comment