GERS Retail Systems Premiers its Retail Suite of
Solutions at NRF `99 in New York City; Offerings
Include Direct Marketing, Business Intelligence,
and Workforce Empowerment
ACTION ITEMS
A host of powerful software enhancements will be unveiled when GERS Retail Systems premiers its Retail Suite of solutions during the National Retail Federation's (NRF) show, January 17-20, in booth no. 351, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.
Among the exciting technological initiatives being introduced are innovative software offerings for direct marketing -- both internet and catalogue solutions for retailers; a new GERS Business Intelligence Initiative, which includes three integrated analytic business products; and a new GERS Workforce Empowerment product offering designed to dramatically improve the productivity of every retail user of the GERS Retail Suite.
"We're really excited about this show because we believe we offer the latest solutions, including direct marketing software, that retailers are looking for to keep ahead of the competition," said Jim Henderson, president and chief executive officer of GERS Retail Systems. "The response we've received already from industry consultants about our new product line has been favorable, so we're confident our customers and prospects will feel the same way."
GERS' Direct Marketing Solution
For direct marketing operations, GERS is excited to introduce RetailDirect -- a Windows-based client/server catalog and internet solution. The applications provide complete enterprise resource management. This flexible, cost-efficient software allows for complete customer satisfaction in any direct marketing consumer or business-tobusiness catalog, direct mail, internet, infomercial, space advertising or network marketing operation. RetailDirect's capabilities include:
GERS' Business Intelligence Initiative
Phase I of the GERS Business Intelligence initiative, and being shown at NRF, is RetailAnalyst, a comprehensive, integrated, analytic business solution for retailers looking to produce a smarter, more competitive organization through better business decision making across the enterprise.
RetailAnalyst accomplishes this by predetermining the key performance indicators in a retail organization (such as sales versus plan, maintained margin, stock turn and GMROI) and analyzing the performance results in a multidimensional view (such as by merchandise level, operation level, vendor or time).
The other modules within the Business Intelligence Initiative, RetailExplorer and RetailForecaster, will be introduced at a later date. RetailExplorer automates the discovery and ranking of factors that have the most impact on the business by exposing hidden patterns and relationships within the data.
RetailExplorer puts the power of data mining directly into the hands of business analysts with quick, easy access to what's driving a business, and what isn't. RetailForecaster is a Windows-based modeling, analysis and forecasting tool that provides retailers with the power of advanced analytical and neural network technologies in an easy-to-use format that imports information from the GERS database.
Exploring information with the Business Intelligence software is simple, efficient, and effective, performed utilizing powerful desktop functionality including automatic drill downs, point and click chart creation, and "slice and dice" analysis. Fully integrated to Microsoft Office '97, this software further enhances a retailer's ability to exploit the information managed within GERS' Oracle relational data warehouse.
GERS' Workforce Empowerment
As part of the Workforce Empowerment Initiative, a complete business process management system called RetailAlert is being integrated within the GERS Retail Suite. RetailAlert enables automatic monitoring of all system activity, with the ability to provide immediate notification of any business condition to any user throughout the retail enterprise.
Buyers can now be notified immediately when purchase orders are received, inventory is low, or deliveries are late. Accounting personnel can be automatically notified via e-mail whenever an invoice is about to exceed the payment terms. Store managers will receive immediate notification of new price changes as soon as they are approved.
RetailAlert allows all retail business processes to be engineered (or reengineered) and maintained within a user-friendly application, and then viewed with sophisticated Internet monitoring tools enabled by the Oracle Application Server. RetailAlert creates a pro-active database environment that routes all necessary information to each decision maker in the workflow process to enable them to respond in a very efficient manner.
Office Link2000 rounds out GERS' Workforce Empowerment, and provides a seamless integration between GERS' enterprise applications and Microsoft Office. Office Link2000 features a dynamic graphical front-end screen (viewer) that automatically enables viewing, printing, and distribution of every report in the application through Microsoft Word.
All financial statements generated within the General Ledger application are automatically fed to Microsoft Excel, enabling analysis, presentation, and distribution of critical financial information through the world's leading spreadsheet application. All merchandise analysis reports also generate Excel spreadsheets automatically, thus completing the integration of Microsoft Office throughout the enterprise.
With the introduction of Office Link2000, GERS has enabled the analysis, publishing, and distribution of all the information managed within their enterprise-wide retail applications through the leading desktop office suite on the market today.
Built within an Oracle relational database to facilitate optimal growth, the GERS Retail Suite is a comprehensive management tool that alleviates retailers of manual tasks by providing real-time automation of integral daily tasks such as sales, inventory, merchandising, and accounting, with the flexibility to shape the system to their individual needs.
The GERS System features clear menus with friendly pop-up windows to guide users through each procedure to save time and increase employee productivity.
San Diego-based GERS Retail Systems provides fully-integrated, Open Systems computer solutions software, hardware, and comprehensive training for retailers of softlines, hardlines, department stores, home furnishings retailers, and consumer electronics/wireless retail operations. http://www.gers.com.