The finest fashion stalwarts congregated at the 10th edition of India Fashion Forum in Mumbai. The session on Business Intelligence Workshop started right after the Triumph Lingerie Fashion show.
Niraj Jaipuria, director, Regional Sales-Asia Pacific, BI Retail, initiated the discussion on how Gini & Jony optimised its operations through business intelligence.
“Business Intelligence is simply an advance retail tool by which I can access my data interactively. It allows me to see precisely what I want to see and omits all the confusing details” stated Jaipuria. He pointed out that Business Intelligence solutions are perceived to be exorbitant.
Dispelling this notion Gaganjit Kahlon, head, IT, Gini & Jony mentioned that Gini & Jony realised tangible improvement in profitability after switching over to the solution. He mentioned that the company was using ERP solution till 2003 and it required a customised solution to simplify the complicated reports, drag and drop the summaries and a solution which could be directly used by business people as opposed to the dedicated IT personnel.
Kahlon added they were able to find the exact details of stock in each store across the country, the percentage of ROI of each store and exercise better control on their supply chain management after they employed the business intelligence solution. Kahlon asserted that it is indeed an affordable technology and reduced our analytical cycle from months to weeks. He added, “BIRetail provided Gini & Jony data-driven decision making capabilities to improve their merchandising decisions, optimise promotions and performances, improved inventory & replenishment decisions and better analysis of brands’ performance.”
“If I need to increase my IT fleet, then Business Intelligence solution does not make any sense. It should actually reduce my dependence on the IT personnel,” quipped Kahlon.
Earlier we used to have templates and the information used to be complicated. However, now the details are more visible and we have decentralised the work accordingly. This has given us better control and accountability over our employees too.
Kahlon put an example of one of their retail stores where the ROI was Rs 10 lakh, which was initially assumed to be a great return. However, the Business Intelligence solution gave them a deeper insight and they realised that the investment was much higher on the inventory as compared to the return.
Kahlon said, “There is no specific time to implement it. The solution is completely affordable and is as cost-effective for a single store as for the multiple stores. Moreover, it is compatible and can be smoothly integrated with the existing ERP and CRM solutions.”
— Pragya Gupta, Mumbai Bureau
