WHERE VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF RETAILERS

In 2001 Retail Variations set out to create a multi-brand, multi channel retail organisation with a difference. Two years and five acquisitions later Robin Klein, Chairman at Retail Variations, looks back at the achievements of the company to date, as well as looking at the preparations that have been made for continued growth in the future.

When Retail Variations was founded two years ago, the vision was to create a company that incorporated market leading brands that were not only different from each other, but that were different to other retailers on the high street. In the highly competitive retail market place, Retail Variations also aimed to provide customers with a multi-channel approach to shopping. This was achieved through a combination of high street stores, catalogues, call centres and the web, and allowing for the flexibility to maximise new opportunities as technologies emerge in the future.

Retail Variations is not a customer-facing organisation. Over the last two years it has acquired five different retail operations - Hawkshead, Manners, Ocean, Past Times and SF Cody. These five companies were selected for acquisition because they met the criteria of having brand propositions which are suitable for multi-channel exploitation and also because Retail Variations felt that they weren’t achieving their full potential in the way that they were being operated.

Upon reaching a turnover of £100 million after two years of trading, Retail Variations decided that 2003 would be a year of consolidation. However Retail Variations idea of a rest differs slightly from most people’s definition. This year Retail Variations has been reviewing the IT systems that are running behind the network of companies in order to redefine the processes that are in place, as well as re-focusing the vision of the company. This vision states that Retail Variations will continue to grow in an organic fashion, and further acquisitions are featured in the plans for the future.

In order to set the company in good stead for organic expansion and further acquisition it was important that a sound retail platform was in place on which to run the businesses. Retail Variations’ solutions provider of choice is Island Pacific, which it has partnered with since the company’s inception in 2001. Retail Variations uses the Island Pacific Merchandising Solution (IPMS) suite across its five operations. The solution covers warehousing, financial, merchandising and ticketing.

After an extensive search, Retail Variations chose to work with Island Pacific because its solutions are not only flexible and easy to integrate, but also offer a modular approach to the technology which provides cost effective pricing structures. The solution also offers flexibility toward growth, which is a vital element for Retail Variations throughout the acquisition process. In essence, it allows the company to trade, as well as providing visibility and an end to end process, from buying to replenishing.

Due to the acquisition culture of the company, it is important that we are able to easily operate companies that are brought into the Retail Variations family, no matter how different they are with regard to brand. We also have to have the flexibility to operate across multiple channels so that we can provide customers with what they want in terms of access to products and services.

At the time of acquisition both SF Cody and Past Times were already using merchandising solutions from Island Pacific. The two companies were integrated into the same retail system and as further companies were acquired, Island Pacific worked with Retail Variations to consolidate them all into the same IT infrastructure.

Hawkshead has been the most recent acquisition, and this year has seen the amalgamation of the Hawkshead database into the existing retail solution. Retail Variations has also recently implemented Island Pacific’s visual report design tool, IP ViewPoint, into the system, which will enable it to save time and money on reporting, allowing sales summaries, purchase orders and inventory status reports to be generated on an ad-hoc basis.

The work that has been completed this year means that the merchandising solution has the capability to easily incorporate additional companies onto the database, when they are acquired in the future. The flexibility of the system also means that the brands can be isolated into different divisions so that each can be analysed separately.

One of the main issues that we are currently faced with in the retail sector is the ability to show return on investment to stakeholders and customers. The increase in channels, such as online and mobile shopping, means that the retail sector is virtually 24/7, which has resulted in competition being fiercer than it ever has been.

Organisations now have to be more competitive on things such as price, service and quality before differentiating themselves in other ways. Because of this, companies have to cut costs in the areas that they should be developing, such as IT. The days of spending millions on IT infrastructure have now gone, and having to do more with less is the new key to success. The aim is to spend as little as possible as smartly as possible.

Mike Dotson, Managing Director, Europe, at Island Pacific said, “Retail Variations is interested in pushing the limits of what Island Pacific can do so that multi-channel opportunities can be used to maximum effect within the company. Retail Variations is a new player to the retail sector in the UK which means that it can afford to be innovative in its approach to retailing. It is the creativity and original way the company approaches problems which drives the success of the growing Retail Variations phenomenon.”

ENDS