Interact Retail Edition provides a solution to manage the internal communications loop with stores

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Interact Retail Edition provides a solution to manage the internal communications loop with stores.

Store communication remains a demanding administrative workload for today's retailers. Interact Intranet Retail Edition helps manage the communications flow by simplifying and organising information exchange between Head Office, branches, and retail sites.

Interact Retail Edition supports a new sub-licence model which offers retail organisations the chance to engage and involve all staff whether they are head office based or located in retail outlets. Sub-licences can be assigned to users instead of the existing type of full licence. Importantly, a user with a sub-licence still has access to all the features of the intranet; they can access any documents, have their own profile, can fill in forms, and can even be given permission to edit documents if appropriate.

A great advantage of the sub-licence model is that the creation, management and removal of users on sub-licences can be handled by an entirely new role, removing this responsibility from central intranet administrators. For example, in a retail environment, a store manager can be given the ability to maintain the staff working at his particular store.

Importantly, sub-licences offer a much more cost effective way of allowing 'occasional' intranet users to access the site as they are available at a lower cost than a full licence. This represents a significant saving for retail operations with potentially thousands of in-store staff who may only require infrequent intranet access.

Nigel Danson, Managing Director at Odyssey reports that retailers are finding tremendous value in Interact Retail Edition: "This Head Office to Store relationship is unique and ever increasing in complexity for retail organisations. Getting business critical information to retail outlets quickly and cost effectively can prove to be a challenge; hardcopy and printed communication is complex and expensive, and documents such as manuals and policies are frequently out of date.

"Communication in the retail environment is about effectively executing day-to-day business and Interact Retail Edition is designed to meet this challenge and provide retailers with uncomplicated, fast and efficient communication and user management, allowing them to react to changing business priorities quickly."

Interact Retail Edition has several distinguishing features that are particularly attractive to retailers:

Sub-licence model allowing users without an active directory account to have access to the intranet. Day to day user management of these accounts can be handled in-store reducing the burden on central IT department.

Easy to use and manage - intuitive, user friendly interface means staff in stores will be up and running immediately.

Actively promotes content such as latest customer offers, promotional plans and competitor information to all staff thus increasing the speed retailers can respond to customer demands and competitor initiatives.

Workflow & Forms application which reduces the need for paper, telephone and email in the collection of information from the stores, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

A 'mandatory read' facility ensures people have read and understood important information resulting in better customer service due to better-informed sales staff.

Enterprise networking tools which actively promote internal communication, collaboration and ideas sharing across retail stores.

Media library for all product images, company logos, and commercials

Interact Retail Edition has been designed to streamline the overall complexity of running a retail business and optimise the execution of day-to-day business. The release of Interact Retail Edition underlines Odyssey's continued investment in product development and innovative intranet solutions.