Retail Operations Process Improvements and Automation

The Client’s Retail Store, located in 76 cities worldwide, provides a shopping experience for customers with the convenience and variety of multiple brands, products and solutions in one location. Customers can purchase computer hardware, software and consumer electronics, while also receiving advice, support and service from teams of technical specialists right in the store.

While successful in managing direct sales to customers paying with cash and credit cards, the Retail Store point-of-sale system did not have a system or process that could accept a Purchase Order (PO) as a form of payment from a commercial or business customer.

These customers were referred to a different sales channel designed to process POs and volume software licensing. However, this sales channel was not fully capable of selling the same array of systems and services available to a Retail Store customer paying with cash or a credit card.

Commercial customers preferred the same convenience and variety of solutions available at the Retail Store location. The Client realized that its inability to provide that same Retail Store experience had become a pain point for a broad number of business customers.

Wimmer Solutions was engaged to develop a process to understand and recommend a solution that would win back the favor of commercial customers. This solution would involve multiple teams engaged with both the Retail sales channel and the infrastructure team managing the tools across the sales and distribution environments.

The proposed solution was far more complex than initially thought because of the multiple tools, processes, sales channels and distribution solutions in place across The Client’s ecosystem. In addition, there was no workflow system available to cover the complexity of the problem.

Beginning with a three-person team, Wimmer Solutions kicked off a nine-month pilot program in 44 of The Client’s Retail Stores. Initially supporting a $3M revenue target, the team created a workflow system involving four Microsoft technologies on Microsoft SharePoint. This workflow enabled a commercial customer to shop in a Retail Store location, choose their equipment and services, pay with a PO and receive delivery of the order in an average of four days. In addition, the commercial customer received price and software incentives to maximize their purchasing power.

The Wimmer team also ensured that the solutions addressed the need to work across several applications and services. These included Microsoft CRM, Dynamics AX, SQL, The Client’s internal credit solution and SAP.