FEDCO STORES USES DS TECHNOLOGY FROM PEOPLESOFT
MicroStrategy Incorporated, a leading worldwide provider of mission-critical decision support systems, and PeopleSoft Inc., a leading provider of enterprise application software, announced that their joint customer, the Federated Employees' Distributing Company (Fedco Stores), a $590 million retail operation, is using PeopleSoft Retail Decision Support, a powerful decision support solution that bundles retail-oriented reports in a friendly graphical interface. The PeopleSoft Retail Decision Support solution is based on MicroStrategy's DSS Objects, which provides a powerful, high-level application programming interface. The solution has provided quick and improved insight into Fedco's retail operation, improving individual store performance, streamlining inventory management and replenishment, and reducing costs in its supply chain.
"Using a PeopleSoft/MicroStrategy solution, our buyers and merchants are able to effectively analyze thousands of products sold by Fedco's stores," said Linda Morin, assistant vice-president of Replenishment Planning at Fedco Stores. "With the ability to analyze our merchandising information at the atomic level, we are able to make decisions that increase our sales, fine-tune our marketing, and improve customer satisfaction."
Previously, Fedco used a number of inefficient systems to generate disparate bulky reports. Relying on limited reporting power, various business users had to manually sift through a number of reports to find the business answers that they needed. The data reflected in these reports was often out of date, unreliable and incomplete, and did not easily reveal the problems or opportunities that users needed to address on a timely basis.
Fedco chose PeopleSoft Retail Decision Support based on an extensive review of available decision support systems. Today the ability to drill down to the single transaction unit of detail keeps buyers and executives from having to look at mountains of data and allows Fedco to focus on solving a business problem or discovering a cost-saving opportunity. With the MicroStrategy/PeopleSoft solution, answers to business questions can be easily attained in a matter of seconds or minutes. A question like "Which vendors in the Health and Beauty Care department gave Fedco the highest and second highest receipts over the weekend?" can identify the vendors that clearly exceeded expectations and can dictate how much stock the store should have to satisfy demand.
Fedco is receiving additional business benefits with PeopleSoft Retail Decision Support. A top seller report, for instance, can reveal what the top 15 selling products are for a given day or week. A Fedco buyer can analyze the supply for a top selling product, see if there's enough stock for the next 2 weeks, learn the status of ordered merchandise at any given time and see if the orders satisfy current and projected demand. The buyer can then use the top seller report as an action tool to replenish top selling merchandise with less than 2 weeks of supply. Fedco is using the application to identify areas of its supply chain that need improvement and to keep items listed in upcoming promotions in-stock. "Our new system has generated great results in terms of reducing the time it takes to investigate potential out-of-stock problems throughout all of our stores," said Morin.
"Fedco needed a system that eliminated inefficiencies, delivered detailed market and store data to our fingertips, and saved us time and resources," continued Morin. "Thanks to our MicroStrategy-based solution, our buyers now have incredibly fast access to more and better information that is enabling an efficient, effective, profitable transition from the supply chain all the way to the customer. In our view, Fedco's comprehensive retail enterprise solution is a world-class asset."
Future Plans Include Closed Loop Implementation Integrating DSS and Merchandising Systems.
Fedco will be among the first major retailers to create a closed-loop information system integrating decision support and merchandising operations. The integrated closed-loop system allows users to take immediate action on product performance information, automatically converting data into meaningful, actionable business transactions. For example, an exception report run in the PeopleSoft Retail Decision Support solution indicating an overstock condition can automatically generate a markdown transaction in the merchandise management system that impacts the entire chain or selected stores. Fedco has been running PeopleSoft's merchandise management system, integrated with its decision support solution, since November 1997.
About Fedco Stores
The Federal Employees' Distributing Company (Fedco Stores), a $590 million retail operation, is a membership discount, mass merchant franchise with 4 million members and 10 stores. Fedco Stores provide high-quality foods and a wide selection of brand name merchandise, including furniture, household products, apparel, and service and quality eyewear. For more information, please call (562) 946-2511 or visit the company's website: http://www.fedcostores.com
About PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft is a global supplier of enterprise application software for business, education and government. PeopleSoft solutions for retail, manufacturing, supply chain, financial, project and human resource management are used by more than 2,500 customers worldwide. Headquartered in Pleasanton, California, PeopleSoft employs 6,000 people and had 1997 revenues of $815 million. PeopleSoft is on the World Wide Web at http://www.peoplesoft.com