Establishing operational control is a key element in ensuring a business can continue to grow successfully. It was the deciding factor behind the decision by East, the fast-expanding women’s fashion company, to invest in an integrated, enterprise-wide IT solution.

Specifically designed for the fashion & lifestyle sector, Prologic’s CIMS has given the company unparalleled control of every aspect of the business – supply chain, wholesale, retail, merchandising and planning. Implemented in just a year, it has also ensured East has the information and decision-making tools to build on the momentum of its strong brand ID and maintain its competitive edge.

A major UK success story with an annual turnover of between £30-35million, East clothes and accessories was launched in 10 stores in 1994, superseding the Anoki brand. Since then, the ladies fashion retailer has expanded to four times its launch size and is currently opening new stores at a rate of ten per year.

While it concentrates primarily on growing its retail business, East also has a thriving wholesale operation, representing about 20% of turnover, with East clothes available through up to 600 outlets across the country.

Known for its use of colourful, natural fabrics and decorative techniques such as appliqué, and embroidery, the East Collection includes clothing and accessories such as bags, scarves and jewellery. The company is also currently trialling a wider range of shoes. The clothes are designed to be comfortable and have a very international feel. Reflecting the East brand values of choice and individuality, the range is much wider than many fashion stores so customers can be confident that they will retain their individuality and not find too many people wearing the same outfit.

East has a fairly straightforward supply chain. The entire range is designed in-house, produced overseas and held at the company’s Wandsworth warehouse (to increase storage capacity, a new warehouse is now planned for wholesale stock). New items are released every fortnight and dispatched direct to East stores, reflecting a new colour or theme. There are currently no plans for a centralised e-commerce or mail order channel as the company feels it would be too hard to replicate the nature of its product and shopping experience online.

Unlike many other fashion retailers, East has an extremely stable customer base and a large proportion of its revenue comes from repeat business. The East store card scheme, for example, attracted 8,000 members within 18 months of its launch. The company also prides itself on its strong understanding of its customers. Merchandise Manager, Ben Hawksley observed: “The typical East customer is between 35-45, has her own home and a high disposable income. She will be confident, well-educated, and she responds to the individuality of our offer and our emphasis on customer service.”

“Because we have really got inside the heads of our customers, we know where they are likely to live and we have an excellent idea of the locations where the business will do well and this means that our new stores can be used to really drive East forward – as long as the openings can be supported by our business infrastructure.”

The IT challenge - re-establishing control of the business

Indeed, East’s continued growth was being achieved despite rather than because of its IT systems, a fact that the company was quick to appreciate. There were several different IT systems in place, some of which were up to 15 years old; there was no integration and IT was not used at all in the production process. In particular, East had outgrown its retail management system and it was spending more and more on system maintenance and support.

“As a business we are not IT savvy – we don’t have an IT Department and we didn’t want to make IT investment a business priority. However, even we came to the conclusion that the system we had just wasn’t going to work. Moreover, the pace we were going to expand meant we had to act when we did,” said Ben Hawksley.

After investigating the options, East quickly decided that a single, integrated solution represented the right approach. “Some of what was available from the major suppliers was incredibly sophisticated,” said Ben, “but I decided that there was no way the business could afford, cope with or needed it. Indeed, to take such a huge leap in sophistication would have undermined our control, and control was the main reason for investing in a new system in the first place.”

“With East continuing its expansion, it was important that the solution was scalable, without being too high tech. We wanted to be confident that all our requirements could be covered, at the right speed for us.

“Better management information was another key requirement, particularly at Head Office. Until then, we had been unable to rely on the decisions we had made because the data wasn’t accurate. How can you run a stock replenishment plan, for example, when your warehouse figures are completely ‘out to lunch’? As a merchandiser, you might as well get a pin out!”

After meeting fashion and lifestyle specialists, Prologic, at the Retail Solutions Show in 2001, East quickly became convinced that the company’s CIMS software solution was exactly what they had been looking for. The only integrated solution developed specifically for use by fashion companies; CIMS meant that East could manage all aspects of its operation as a single, integrated whole. Written and developed within Oracle, the world’s leading database management environment, CIMS also had the necessary power and scalability to support East now and in the future.

In addition to compelling business advantages such as the ability to manage and control its entire supply chain, scalability, and accurate management information for informed decision-making; a further deciding factor was the Hertfordshire company’s customer list which included blue-chip names within the fashion industry such as Jigsaw, Ted Baker and Hobbs. Clearly, Prologic was a company which understood the specific issues and challenges faced by fashion companies, such as merchandise planning: “We felt that Prologic was the kind of company we could do business with,” added Ben.

Going live

East signed up with Prologic by the end of 2001. The new server was installed in February 2002 and by the end of the year the system had been implemented on a rolling basis across the business, with CIMS Vision – Prologic’s management information system – the latest to be installed.

At the end of each season, the East retail operation writes all stock to zero and removes it from the business. It was therefore a fairly simple matter to build up gradually by running Summer 2002 on the old system and Autumn/Winter 2003 on CIMS. The wholesale department, on the other hand, had already received orders for Winter 2003 and therefore had to convert them to the new system.

Despite these potential challenges, East insisted that there was no scenario testing; no single ‘go live’ day; and a minimal number of consultancy days. Explained Ben: “We were determined that the entire system would be in place in 2002, to support the next phase of our store opening programme. To their credit, Prologic understood and supported us throughout.”

“We’ve had various consultancies involved over the year and they were amazed at how far we have come and how quickly,” he continued. “The first year was all about automating business operations and processes across the company – purchase orders, credit control, replenishment and so on. Now we have achieved this, year two is all about getting value for money from the system. We are now able to look at products which we didn’t have initially such as imaging, merchant planning and the use of handhelds within the stores and warehouse, which will improve the way we run the business.”

Control and a vision for the future

Now the Prologic system is in place, East can be confident that it has the platform to support its future plans.

“CIMS means we’ve got control,” said Ben. “No one is going to say ‘if we open these extra ten stores, will our system support that?’ which was the case before. It’s one less thing to worry about. In addition, the level of integration we have achieved ensures that people have a better understanding of how the business works. No one is able to remain in their own little box – they are all getting involved in driving the business forward.”

The most significant advance for the future is in the level of management information and more sophisticated reporting options which East has been able to obtain about the business, following the implementation of CIMS Vision. Unlike other management information systems, Vision integrates with the CIMS database to provide immediate access to every level of information across the entire business, with no need to specify, collate or verify data in advance of analysing it. The multi-dimensional design means users can use familiar point and click techniques to ‘slice and dice’ data in any way they choose, ensuring reports can be customised and presented in the way which is most meaningful for the business.

“Vision is a big step forward and we can already see that it’s going to make a big difference,” said Ben. “It’s great for exception reporting - for example, if I want to know on a weekly basis, what our weekly sales are for accessories but without the figures for shoes – and for comparing performance over different periods, locations, suppliers and products. In short, it’s enabling us to put together information which will really help us to make business decisions. If people ask me for a report, I’m not spending hours combining the data from different systems.”

“In summary,” concluded Ben, “CIMS has given us the control we need, plus that extra level of sophistication to help us develop our current system. In large part this is because Prologic are specialists within our sector. Their proven understanding of our business has justified our original decision and made a real difference during the implementation process.”