In this blogpost, we interview Richard Surman, Head of IT at Crew Clothing. He discusses why Archean from Retail247 was chosen as Crew’s stock management system, how it’s used by the business and the benefits that have been seen since deployment.
Q: Why did you choose Archean, the stock management system from Retail247?
A: We were given a challenge by the business to introduce a single pool of stock for our warehouse location, with a view to save capacity and improve efficiency. Archean gave us the capability to do that. It also ensures we have the visibility of various stock pots within our system, allowing us to allocate stock and segment it based on our channel partners.
Q: How does Archean improve your stock management?
A: Today Archean is our single view of stock across the business. It gives us full visibility of store stock, DC stock, channel partner stock and wholesale stock.
Archean is used across all of our store estate now. It’s used for all of our stock movements via our tablet app, which improves efficiencies in store by allowing store staff to automate the booking in of stock and stock movements. This is instead of the old manual processes which were very time laborious.
Just days into the pilot, Archean quickly demonstrated that it effectively reduced the time required for stock receipting by 70%. Archean’s modern architecture has given us the reassurance that it can handle many transactions very fast. This was something we couldn’t do with our old systems.
Q: Why was Archean’s real-time stock visibility such a key factor in your decision?
A: Real-time visibility is very critical across our business. Archean gives our stores the capability to view what stock they should have, and also what stock is in other branches close by.
“Archean saves us so much time alongside improving stock accuracy. It’s a simple platform which is really user friendly, and I’ve trained the whole team without issue.” – Store Manager, Crew Clothing Beaconsfield
Q: How does Archean stock management system work alongside Origin, Retail247’s PIM solution, as well as your other systems?
A: The combination of Archean and Origin together allows us to displace the old analogy of an ERP system. It gives us the capability to separate various responsibilities that an ERP used to have, and delivers better state-of-the-art solutions across the business.
Deploying Archean has enabled our legacy environment, bringing consistency and visibility to our stock management process. Working with our existing legacy solutions was challenging and the task of full integration seemed overwhelming. However, this process was made easier by the pragmatic and experienced team at Retail247.
Q: What does the future look like?
A: The success of Archean has allowed us to work with Retail247 to enhance the product even further. We’ve recently gone live with an Allocation and Replenishment module, and we’re working on Purchase Ordering.
We treat Retail247 as part of our team and know that they are always driven to provide the best solution for us.
“The project from start to finish has been flawless and sets a very high standard for future works! The collaboration between Retail247 and Crew has been the backbone of success, not to mention the early hours, multiple alignments and meticulously checking a million numbers in many spreadsheets. It’s been months of hard work, but I hope now we can see it was worth it.” – Matthew Taylor, Project Manager at Crew Clothing
To learn more about Archean, our stock management system, take a look at our info-booklet or get in touch with the team. Simply email archean@retail247.com.
