Sophelle: Retail Technology Strategy and Implementation

Retail IT Strategy and Implementation

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Sophelle provides senior IT leadership for upscale fashion designer with fast expanding retail footprint

Retail Growth Overwhelming IT Department
Fast-paced expansion in the retail arena, while a byproduct of a successful business, means challenges for IT to adequately support the growth. An upscale designer of sportswear and accessories for women with a growing number of nationwide retail locations was experiencing such challenges. Their recent rapid growth as a retailer threatened to outpace the volume that their existing store systems and IT staff could support. As such, the company retained the services of a Senior IT Advisor from Sophelle to assess the current situation and provide strategic guidance.

Sophelle's Assessment
The business was outgrowing their current systems and the existing IT staff lacked the guidance, processes, and resources to adequately address the challenges associated with the continued expansion.

The business needed to build an IT staff capable of delivering services to the company in a manner consistent with its overall requirements and constraints. Additionally, numerous critical issues requiring remediation were identified with the company's POS, inventory, merchandising, sales audit, and CRM applications.

Solution
Sophelle worked with both IT and business representatives to define IT strategies and ensure their alignment with corporate strategy. Sophelle was instrumental in identifying and prioritizing the severity of issues with retail systems, as well as planning and overseeing the remediation of the most critical issues. Sophelle formalized a number of previously informal processes and instituted new processes. All new and modified procedures were documented and communicated to the IT staff.

The updated procedures laid a foundation that would enable the IT staff to more effectively support the company's continued growth and success. Additionally, Sophelle provided guidance and mentoring to the company's IT staff, assisted in the development of IT departmental goals, and worked with both IT staff and vendors to achieve those goals.

Result
Key issues with retail systems were identified and mitigated. The IT staff is well positioned to provide higher levels of service in support of the business goals for the foreseeable future. Executive management became more confident than ever in the IT department's ability to support the business' objectives.

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