In today\'s commercial world, there are some businesses that can be very unpredictable and one among these is the retail apparel industry. Vendors need to know their customers very closely and make available the kind of clothing that complements the current fashion trend. Failure to follow this comes as a severe blow not only to the brand image, but it could also have a severe impact on the profitability of that business. Its future viability is also affected to a great extent, where excess inventory would be required to be sold at the scrap value. Except in this unpredictable world of fashion, you will perhaps not find any other business where innovation and creativity and so closely intertwined.
Operational challenges
Departmental stores constantly need to revamp their structures, and need to move within the premises several times in a year. It is a very costly exercise and time consuming activity to re-architect their IT networking after every move. Sometimes departmental stores organize promotional bazaars at prime locations, rendering it difficult for sales staff to conduct routine customer transactions. This could lead to discrepancies in the actual transactions taken place and the receipts generated. The sales staff needs to get real time information on stock availability. There emerged the need to develop a system that could allow the staff to record inventory while moving, instead of having to come back to the central computer system to feed data.
Business process restructuring through wireless technology
Different methods including installing GPS and ISDN to ascertain access to a single data repository containing records of retail sales or inventory in warehouse including in-transit goods movement have been experimented, but each of these proposals failed either on cost factor or ineffectiveness.
One viable solution that came to light was the introduction of wireless technology at warehouses and retail sites. These retail stores would be fully equipped with laptops and wireless PDAs for sales operators, thereby allowing staff to move comfortably within the store premises and between stores also. Thus a delivery instrument centralized for every application was believed crucial for an overall solution. Different technologies have been tested and evaluated for this purpose.
The wireless technology adopted for the purpose optimizes inventory management processes. This new wireless model results in a more competent model for tracking inventory at warehouses and the front sales staff who have online access to the most updated knowledge from any PC in a securely manner.
Benefits of a centralized delivery model
With the installation of centralized application delivery system and management on specific servers, as also providing virtualized access of application on PDAs, it is easier to handle counter relocations of departmental stores and periodic season sales from central bazaars without the need to reinstall sales point terminals and other similar equipment. This saves a lot of time and money too. Productivity of retail staff increases and so also at warehouses that use real time inventory tracking.
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