Ted Baker celebrates ten years with Prologic

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Ted Baker celebrates ten years with Prologic.

Ted Baker is one of the fastest growing lifestyle brands in the UK. Its come a long way since its beginnings as a shirt specialist in Glasgow in 1988. Over the past ten years, Ted Baker has continued worldwide expansion into Europe, USA and the Far East as well as their 130 retail locations in the UK and Ireland. Every bit the global lifestyle brand, Ted brings a quirky touch to everything from menswear, womenswear and childrenwear to eyewear, tents and fragrances.

Over the past ten years, Ted Baker has been using CIMS from Prologic; a software solution tailored to the needs of fashion businesses. This single system has provided the company with the control and visibility over the entire business, from sourcing and warehousing through to retail and wholesale sales. Furthermore, the highly scalable architecture has enabled Ted Baker to achieve rapid expansion and diverse goals, from multi-channel retailing to international operations.

Lifestyle Brand

Ted Baker has become a globally renowned lifestyle brand, without relying on advertising or self-promotion. The company has expanded organically, relying on word of mouth and its UK success to drive growth, develop international operations and extend its product range.

Ten years ago, as the company prepared to float on the London Stock Exchange, it became apparent that new IT systems were required to remove inefficiencies within the business and improve the quality and accuracy of information.

Craig Smith, Ted Bakers Brand Communication Director explains, Multiple systems with different levels of interfaces made it extremely difficult to get hold of business information and reports did not ensure accuracy. The system in use at the time had undergone a great deal of bespoke work and was simply not good enough to support an increasingly dynamic business looking to exploit strong economic conditions.

Operational Imperative

Initially finance and retail (including EPoS and wholesale) were all run on different systems. Although stock records were shared between retail and wholesale, there was no interface to the accounts package. Production systems were run manually on paper and Excel spreadsheets.

There was a clear need for an integrated solution that could deliver rapid access to key information, from sales to stock levels. The system seemed to be in a constant state of disrepair, meaning we had issues raising invoices or running stock reports, says Smith. EPoS units needed a lot of intervention to get sales information, meaning that the business was constantly waiting for the system to catch up before it had accurate information.

Furthermore, key issues such as backing up were overlooked in certain areas Ted Baker was spending too much time running the day to day business to focus on achieving business expansion.

Users spent a lot of time manually intervening to compensate for lack of functionality, Smith says. There was no email, so communications were impaired and there was no overall IT strategy which left the business vulnerable.

Integrated Approach

With plans to go public and achieve significant expansion, Ted Baker needed an IT infrastructure that could also support rapid change or expansion. Smith explains, Ted Baker wanted a single application for the entire business the costs of having separate systems are prohibitive. Furthermore, one system delivers far better integration across all areas.

CIMS was the only serious contender that delivered a truly integrated solution across Ted Bakers key business areas retail and wholesale as well as a module for the warehouse and production areas.  It also came with an integrated accounts package, removing the need for manual processing of transactions, Smith says.

The integrated CIMS solution delivered immediate benefits, most notably in the provision of accurate and consistent stock and sales information. IT support issues also dropped considerably, enabling the teams to focus on working for the business, Smith confirms.

Integrated Business

Ted Baker uses CIMS across the business, from ordering products to controlling and distributing stock and managing different sales channels. Sales information is pulled overnight from the Prologic EPoS systems in store, with information used to drive buying decisions and stock replenishment.

Using this integrated information, the company has an up-to-date view of stock and performance across the business, supporting not only effective reordering and replenishment but also mark-downs and re-pricing during sales.

Ted Baker is also using the information from CIMS to create a raft of reports both downloading information into Excel and using CIMS Cube Reporting, says Dustan Steer, IT Manager, Ted Baker. Information is key to ensure the company is continually assessing performance and spotting trends across the global business.

As the company has expanded, CIMS has been rolled out to new markets, including the US warehouse. Stores in the US, France and Ireland also use the CIMS EPoS system, whilst other global joint ventures and franchise agreements make local EPoS decisions.

Ted Baker integrates with these international operations using sales and barcode files to keep a close track of progress, Steer says. Without this integration, the company would rely on spreadsheets containing sales information which would be far less efficient. The ability to integrate with these franchises, especially in the Far East, enables Ted Bakers partners to trade more effectively and leverage product knowledge to maximise opportunities.

Wholesale Opportunity

Since the initial implementation, Prologic has delivered a number of system enhancements to enable Ted Baker to respond to business change. A key addition has been the introduction of a solution to help Ted Baker manage stock between its wholesale and retail business channels.

The system was originally set up to enable the retailer to introduce a single stock type in the warehouse, and thereby enable perpetual inventory of stock rather than closing the warehouse every six months for stock taking. This system is now being enhanced to support Ted Bakers multi-channel business across multiple countries and franchise agreements. Using CIMS, Ted Baker has excellent visibility of stock and sales across the distinct areas of the business, Smith says.

The company is currently piloting the new CIMS Wholesale Portal that allows wholesale customers to access product information based on the ranges available to each customer online. Wholesale customers can assess product styles, sizes and prices and place orders online, streamlining the process and improving the quality of service to the wholesale market.

Driving Efficiency

In addition, the integration of CIMS with radio frequency scanners for warehouse stock handling has allowed Ted Baker to double storage space and increase pick rates, improving warehouse productivity. Steer adds, Ted Baker is also working with Prologic to automate job production within the warehouse to ensure pick lists are ready at the beginning to each day, which will further improve productivity.

The company is also looking to improve the purchasing processes that have become increasingly complex with goods manufactured in multiple destinations. It is important to ensure that the company operates in the most efficient manner at every level of the business, from manufacture to uploading information into the purchasing system, Steer says.

Extraordinary Growth

Since the implementation of CIMS ten years ago, Ted Bakers growth has increased considerably from 15 UK stores. Ted Baker has also developed retail license agreements in many countries across Asia and wholesale partners distributing stock across Europe, US and Australasia.

Smith confirms, CIMS is a highly scalable solution which means that Ted Baker can add stores, warehouses and wholesale customers without any major impact on internal processes.  We have worked closely with Prologic to help enhance the system to support us in growth areas, as well as keeping abreast of industry standards such as Chip and PIN and PCI:DSS.

Smith concludes, I think Teds growth over the last ten years speaks for itself.  This would not have been achievable without a reliable system for all of our key business processes.