Mosaic Fashions

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Mosaic Fashions.

Background
Mosaic Fashions is the parent company of eight design-led fashion brands: Anoushka G, Coast, Karen Millen, Oasis, Odille, Principles, Shoe Studio Group and Warehouse.  The brands are sold through 2,015 stores in 37 countries.

Mosaic Fashions development has been through brand extensions, organic growth and new brand acquisition, resulting in an expanding network of UK and international concessions and franchises and a thriving multi-channel business.  The groups network of host retailers includes some of Europes premier department stores: House of Fraser, Selfridges, Fenwicks, Allders, Debenhams, Vroom and Dreesman, and Brown Thomas. 

A tried-and-tested partnership
For a number of years, Retail Assist has worked closely with brands within the Mosaic Fashions portfolio.  Its involvement has included the integration of the Oasis and Coast businesses and the creation of a shared IT platform.  Other projects have been in the area of Merchandise Management, including around NSB Mercatus, and the creation of a new Warehouse Management System. 

Retail Assist is also contracted to provide its managed polling service, Ra-X, to some of the Mosaic own-fascia and concession brands. This includes the daily collection of consolidated sales data from each of the business outlets and its transmission to Mosaic together with an analysis of any failures or discrepancies.

Explains John Bovill, Group IT Director at Mosaic Fashions: Weve had a long relationship and Retail Assist understands retail and our business.  Its a great marriage.  Were getting the cost-savings and benefits of shared services and we can plan our international growth without issues.

From inhouse to outsourced
Until early 2008, Mosaic Fashions had been operating a Stores Help Desk using internal staff.  As the brands and their international store estate grew, it became an increasing challenge to support the wide range of systems deployed and to do the task cost-effectively.

Mosaic was aware that Retail Assist was operating a Store Systems Help Desk on behalf of other retailers, each of whom was benefiting from the shared services approach and enjoying the economy of scale that Retail Assist was passing on. 

Given this proven competence and the track record that Retail Assist had built with the Group, Mosaic felt they could outsource their Store Systems Help Desk with confidence.

Explains Retail Assists Managed Services Director, Dan Smith: This new contract builds on our long-term relationship with parts of the Mosaic Fashions.  We value the confidence that Mosaic has shown in us by outsourcing first-line support responsibility for its entire store estate.

Stores support in action
Retail Assist has been complimented on the smooth transition and the service now being provided to stores.  Comments John Bovill: The handover to Retail Assist was seamless.  Our users didnt even notice the change of service.

Retail Assist is supporting all of the EPoS systems that Mosaic uses: StorePlus, Store6, Retail-J and Microsoft Wepos.  

Support provided across the entire store estate comprises initial problem diagnosis and resolution.  Whilst it escalates calls to third-parties such as the new internal Store Systems Support team at Mosaic and external hardware maintenance providers, Retail Assist remains responsible for issue resolution and achievement of Service Level Agreement (SLA) terms. 

The service provides both standard trading and out-of-hours cover: Monday to Saturday, 08.00 21.30 and Sunday & Bank Holidays, 09.30 18.00.

In addition, all first-level support calls from Mosaics Buying, Finance, Head Office and Admin functions are channelled through the Help Desk.  For these users, technical support is given on desktop and core business applications.

A win-win situation
Retail Assist is now delivering the responsive service that Mosaic needs across all its brands, stores, concessions and franchises, and is able to offer expertise in an ever-increasing range of retail systems. 

An additional benefit of the outsourcing of the Stores Help Desk is that Mosaic has been able to re-deploy its inhouse resources to provide 2nd- and 3rd-level Store Systems support, manage the Retail Assist relationship and dedicate more time to the store opening process.

John Bovill sees the practical side of internal and external teams working to their core competences. Weve been able to re-deploy our staff very practically, he says.  Our team can now concentrate on enabling the business through IT and focusing on development.  First-line support is Retail Assists core competence so its sensible for them to managing this for us.

Improving service
John Bovill has seen other gains from outsourcing this function.  Because of its knowledge and experience of providing this service to other retailers, Retail Assist has been able to apply best practice to our operations.  Were gaining a lot from the experience of others.
 
Mosaic is particularly complimentary about the work that Retail Assist does on capturing, analysing and publishing call metrics.  Weve seen the benefit of Retail Assists professionalism in this area.  Now we can demonstrate the service we provide to our partners, and this is driving further service improvements.

As anticipated, the new service is delivering synergies and cost benefits, concludes John Bovill.

BUSINESS ISSUE
Mosaic was finding it a challenge to internally resource a Store Systems Help Desk for its 1,750+ international store estate, 8 brands and the range of retail systems used.

SOLUTION
Retail Assist provides 1st line Store Systems Help Desk for all brands and trading entities in the UK, Eire, USA and Europe, plus supports administrative and corporate users of desktop and core business applications.

BENEFITS
Outsourcing has enabled Mosaic to get fast resolution to its support calls and to be able to focus its in house resources on strategic activities such as store openings and providing specialist systems support.  Service improvements have also been achieved and are now visible to its brands.

PLATFORM
The Help Desk is based at Retail Assists Support Centre.  This tailor-made facility is dedicated to retail Help Desk operations and has the staff and infrastructure to provide support during normal and out-of-hours trading.