Dansk Supermarked selects Infosys for its strategic cross-channel commerce programme

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Dansk Supermarked selects Infosys for its strategic cross-channel commerce programme.

Dansk Supermarked A/S, a leading retailer in the Nordics, has engaged Infosys, a global leader in consulting and technology, as its strategic partner to transform its cross-channel commerce programme. Through this engagement, Dansk Supermarked A/S which has over 1300 stores across Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Poland will provide its consumers a seamless and convenient cross-channel shopping experience.
 
Infosys was selected by Dansk Supermarked A/S for its capabilities in delivering end-to-end digital commerce programmes for global retailers. This transformation programme will start with Bilka.dk, one of Dansk Supermarked's store chains and is expected to help increase Bilka.dk's sales to 2.4 Billion Danish kroner by 2016.

The programme will help Dansk Supermarked A/S enhance its consumers' cross-channel experience by:

• Multiplying the online range of products resulting in more product choices for consumers.
• Introducing new services for convenient online shopping.
• Improving consumer experience through extensive research and user tests.

Dansk Supermarked A/S and Infosys will bring together their complimentary domain and technology expertise in the retail industry to co-create a cross-channel commerce solution that can be reused by both for similar business opportunities.
 
Infosys supported Dansk Supermarked A/S in identifying the key business capabilities for the cross-channel solution, defining the strategic roadmap and   selecting the platform. Infosys is now implementing the solution based on the hybris suite of products.
 
Infosys is a strategic partner of hybris, a provider of multichannel commerce and communication software and this programme will strengthen its relationship and help in jointly building tomorrow's digital commerce enterprise for Dansk Supermarked A/S.
 
Infosys has been involved in over 80 digital commerce engagements for leading retailers globally. The digital commerce proposition of Infosys will help Dansk Supermarked A/S to realize business value and ensure consumer delight by providing an 'anything, anytime, anywhere' retail experience for its consumers.

Karmesh Vaswani, Vice President and Head Europe; Retail, Consumer Packaged Goods & Logistics, Infosys added: "We look forward to partnering with Dansk Supermarked on this strategic programme. This will further increase our commitment to the retail and consumer market in the Nordics. Our success metrics for this programme are linked to Dansk Supermarked creating new benchmarks in digital excellence across the European retail industry, while improving its profitability, competitiveness and innovation."

Ariel Ldi, CEO, hybris said, ""Infosys has been one of our strategic partners for a number of years and we value their knowledge of our end-to-end multichannel commerce solutions. We are delighted to be working together to deliver Dansk Supermarked A/S a fully integrated solution that will provide all the capabilities it needs to support their cross- channel programme."
 
Alan Jensen, IT Director, Dansk Supermarked A/S, commented: "This cross-channel commerce programme is a key enabler for our business growth strategy and we are partnering with Infosys to leverage  its strong digital commerce expertise, technology leadership and understanding of the retail industry to accelerate growth for Bilka.dk."

Exclusive interview

In an exclusive interview with Manufacturing & Logistics IT, Jrgen Klwer, COO of Bilka, a store chain of Dansk Supermarked A/S, provided his take on why Infosys was chosen as Dansk's e-commerce technology platform infrastructure and process management provider/consultancy of choice: "We have followed a comprehensive evaluation process and chose Infosys as our strategic partner for this cross-channel commerce transformation programme. Infosys has been involved in large digital commerce programmes for global retailers, possess deep industry knowledge, provides technology leadership and strong package expertise. We had Infosys help us in defining our roadmap and evaluating the technology platforms, during which it demonstrated its eCommerce expertise, showing us that it would be a strong partner in our transformational journey."
 
Klwer spoke about the key functionality/benefit attributes of the new ecommerce system both from Dansk's and its customers' perspective. "At Bilka, we believe in offering our customers a superior cross-channel shopping experience by providing them with the best assortment and the largest range of products across any channel they wish to use. This programme will start with Bilka.dk, the hypermarket format of three different store types within Dansk Supermarked. It is expected to help increase Bilka.dk's sales to 2.4 Billion Danish kroner by 2016. This crosschannel solution will help increase the basket size, order frequency of existing clients, decrease cost per transaction, enhance crosschannel effectiveness, sell more items that cannot be sold in stores, improve customer loyalty and brand marketing, and not least secure scalability.
 
With regard to key required deliverables demanded by Dansk in terms of the e-commerce platform's functionality/use, Klwer pointed out that these comprise all the elements that are needed to make an end-to-end cross-channel implementation successful; starting with the creative design and customer facing website development, to the implementation of back-end processes, product information and integration

Klwer also explained that Infosys is the lead system integrator (SI) partner for the programme, with complementary domain and technology expertise in the retail industry. "It has supported us in identifying the key business capabilities for the cross-channel solution, defining the strategic roadmap and selecting the platform," he said. "It will now implement the solution based on the hybris suite of products."
 
In terms of the key benefits of the new system compared with Dansk's previous methodology, Klwer explained that the company started its online commerce channel in 2009, with limited products online. "Over time, with the evolution of online commerce, there was a natural increase of our online market share," he said. "The existing technology platform based on Microsoft Commerce Server was not scalable and hence limited out ability to be able to offer more products online. The new cross-channel solution will be agile and nimble technologically, while offering a seamless and convenient cross-channel shopping experience, wider range of online  products and new services to consumers."

Klwer concluded: "This programme will position us as a true crosschannel retailer who is present before, during and after the purchase across website, store, customer service, in-store kiosk and mobile. This would also make us the most advanced retailer, when compared to our immediate competitors."