Wickes Furniture Selects SAP Software To Streamline Supply Chain Management

Furniture World Magazine

SAP America, Inc., a subsidiary of SAP AG announced that Wickes Furniture Company Inc. -- an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners, Inc. and a leading mid-market furniture retailer with 31 retail locations and four distribution centers in the Midwest region of the United States -- has selected the SAP for Retail industry solution as its business management platform. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver(TM) platform, SAP's retail solution set will drive Wickes's aggressive growth strategy by creating end-to-end processes from the back-office to the storefront and enhancing in-store service with innovative mobile solutions. The announcement was made at the Retail Systems Conference and Exposition, being held in Chicago, Illinois, May 24 - 26. "Our growth strategy for the next four years focuses on business integration for better customer service and overall visibility across the business to ensure customers can get the product they want, when they want it," said Frank O'Connor, VP of Information Systems, Wickes Furniture. "We wanted to go with the best overall application vendor -- someone we know is there for the long-haul. SAP for Retail offers world-class retail functionality that will help us reduce expenses by bringing automation and efficiency into our financial and replenishment processes. With its scalable platform for easier integration of emerging technologies, SAP for Retail will allow us to evolve the way we run our business and serve our customers." All the Furnishing for an Integrated Retail Value Chain Replacing a legacy system marked by manual processes and extensive use of spreadsheets, SAP for Retail will empower Wickes with an integrated view of company operations and customer buying patterns to help reduce supply chain costs and increase sales. The SAP solution will put vital financial, merchandising, assortment and movement information at employees' fingertips, enabling supply chain visibility across Wickes's stores and distribution centers and rapid response to in-store activities. Retail industry-specific SAP® solutions for mobile business will help enhance customer service at Wickes stores. The company will be equipping its sales force with tablet PCs to enable rapid response to customer needs and help seize cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. Employees will be able to walk through the store while retaining continual access to up-to-the-minute sales and inventory information. "SAP for Retail supports an aggressive growth plan at Wickes that focuses on extended customer services such as increasing in-stock positions and providing for same day delivery," said Jim McMurray, senior vice president, Retail, SAP America. "SAP NetWeaver enables growing midsize retailers like Wickes to integrate their IT business platform cost effectively while getting the most out of existing investments and solutions. SAP for Retail will help maximize Wickes's existing non-SAP solutions for data warehousing and point of sale." SAP was selected in a competitive bidding process. Wickes Furniture, which employs more than 1,500 people, is planning to roll out SAP's retail software this year. About Wickes Furniture Rooted in the heart of the Midwest, Wickes Furniture, one of the nation's largest furniture retailers opened its first showroom in Fridley, Minnesota in 1971, offering one of the largest selections of quality home furnishings, affordably priced. Today Wickes Furniture has 31 showroom nationwide, plus 4 distribution centers, located in Chicago, Minneapolis/St.Paul, Portland and Los Angeles. Wickes Furniture employs over 1,500 people from warehouse to sales to corporate support. About SAP for Retail SAP for Retail is an industry solution that combines mySAP(TM) Business Suite solutions with a broad set of integrated retail applications to help companies to profitably serve consumer demand across multiple channels. Today, more than 2,500 retailers worldwide are SAP customers, 400 of which are using industry-specific applications from the SAP for Retail portfolio. Built on the open architecture of the SAP NetWeaver(TM) platform, SAP for Retail includes core capabilities for financial management, human resources, supplier relationship management and customer relationship management as well as support for industry-specific merchandise management and planning, store and channel management, demand forecasting, replenishment, sophisticated allocation, workforce management, POS data management and RFID. (Additional information at http://www.sap.com/retail/) About SAP SAP is the world's leading provider of business software solutions*. Today, more than 27,000 customers in over 120 countries run more than 91,500 installations of SAP® software-from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize businesses to enterprise-scale suite solutions for global organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver(TM) platform to drive innovation and enable business change, mySAP(TM) Business Suite solutions are helping enterprises around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP industry solutions support the unique business processes of more than 25 industry segments, including high tech, retail, public sector and financial services. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at http://www.sap.com) (*) SAP defines business software solutions as comprising enterprise resource planning and related software solutions such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.