IT's In Fashion At Liz Claiborne

The project started more than a year ago with a search for a new strategic platform for Liz's U.S.-based outlet and specialty stores, which include brands such as its signature, Liz Claiborne, plus Dana Buchman, Elisabeth, Ellen Tracy, Laundry by Shelli Segal, Lucky Brand Jeans, Mexx USA and Sigrid Olsen.

John Kovac, vice president of IT at Liz Claiborne, says he had one initial criterion for the technology makeover: a Microsoft platform and applications that worked with Windows, which he viewed as the best option for the amount of flexibility and functionality he envisioned for the company's stores.

"We're always looking at what's out there, talking with vendors," Kovac explains. "So we knew we wanted to take advantage of the Microsoft platform."

Also on its agenda, Liz wanted to get store managers out of the back room and onto the floor. That way, they could help associates and pay more attention to customers, Kovac says.

The Technology
Keith McNamara, senior vice president of general merchandise and software operations at integrator Fujitsu, which worked with Liz Claiborne on this project, said while it is getting harder for retailers to remain competitive, technology can help tremendously for better promotion management, better control of inventory, better management of markdowns and compiling data on what is selling in which stores. Liz is on its way. For its tech makeover, Liz went with hardware from Fujitsu and software from NSB Group, both Microsoft SRI partners. Turns out Liz had had a previous software relationship with STS Systems, which was acquired by NSB Group in 2000, and decided to implement NSB Group's Connected Retailer Store Solution. Kovac adds that the NSB solutions fit within Liz's technical and business parameters, which was important in the selection process.

On the software side, Liz decided on NSB's Connected Retailer Point of Sale, Connected Retailer CRM, Connected Retailer Communications and Connected Retailer Credit applications, as well as the Connected Retailer Sales Analytics, Sales Audit and Loss Prevention modules. The Connected Retailer Sales Analytics is integrated with Connected Retailer CRM to feed transaction data from every sales channel.

NSB then provided Liz with options for hardware and helped it narrow down the field.

"We have very strong partnerships with key vendors and integrators," Kovac says. "The ability to leverage their experiences enhances our ability to provide best-in-class solutions. We often turn to our partners or integrators for assistance in developing and implementing solutions."

The Connected Retailer solutions sit on top of roughly 1,000 Fujitsu TeamPoS 2000 terminals, which run Microsoft Windows XP Professional. In addition, each store requires a dedicated SQL Server database running on a Windows Server 2003 and a store manager workstation running Windows XP Professional. The latter lets store managers access a large variety of applications--typically only available off the store floor, such as e-mail, inventory and other back-office systems--up front at the register.

"Liz has unleashed the store manager(s) from the back room, bringing them to the front room where they're more empowered and can be with the associates and the customers and help drive decisions and sales," says Janet Kennedy, managing director for Microsoft's retail and hospitality-industry solutions.

Liz also simultaneously tackled its inventory automation, implementing a back-end system using wireless scanners from Symbol Technologies running on Windows CE for inventory management, with access to systems at its headquarters. To provide a constant connection between each of the stores and headquarters, Liz rolled out a frame relay network at each of its stores.

The Implementation
Last September, a pilot program of the new technology was rolled out to 11 stores. Microsoft was charged with helping Liz put together a road map and implementation plan, but was not directly involved in the technology implementation, Kovac says. The pilot program focused on the implementation one store at a time.

NSB was tapped to help with the pilot program implementation. "We were involved in the business requirements definition, the initial quality assurance and implementation in the first set of stores," says Scott Mantella, account executive at NSB Group.

Ultimately, though, Fujitsu was chosen as the ongoing implementation partner. Kovac says he gave "a couple of vendors an opportunity to help with the implementation." But Fujitsu proved to be the most "reliable and dependable, which strengthened the partnership and reinforced our decision," he says.

Liz had initially funded the conversion of 100 stores this year to the new technology; by the end of 2005, it estimates a total of some 320 stores will be converted, plus any new stores will be opened on the new platform.

"It has been so successful that we've also funded the completion of the Lucky stores this year, which is an additional 50 stores above the original plan," Kovac notes, though he declined to comment on the value of the project.

At the start, though, the scope of the project was quite a challenge, Kovac acknowledges. First of all, the Fujitsu technology was not NSB-certified. "Right off the bat, we couldn't just put the NSB software on the Fujitsu register and have it work," Kovac says. "But they worked together and resolved that."

Another partner-related issue involved the licensing of Microsoft software from NSB and how exactly that would work. "Microsoft said, 'We'll work with NSB and find out what makes the most sense and get back to you,'" Kovac says. "So they worked all of that out."

On the implementation side, Liz also ran into some problems because each store is different. Kovac says that some of the early partners involved would run into such roadblocks as a cable run that would not be up to specification or a new piece of equipment might be required and "they would just panic, or say our contract doesn't say we have to fix that." That's why Liz turned to Fujitsu for the rest of the implementation.

The Benefits
The technology makeover has been effective in improving the customer experience, using sales data more effectively and improving the efficiencies of its stores.

For example, the placement of SQL servers in every store has allowed for distributed processing and a more consistent customer experience. "If we lose connectivity in one store, we can still ring up sales, dial up credit checks and perform offline processing," Kovac says.

From the customer perspective, the new technology has speeded up the check-out process on a couple of fronts: the printing of receipts has been reduced from 20 seconds to second or subsecond times; credit authorizations have been reduced from 15 to 20 seconds to one or two seconds; and store returns have been improved with new functionality.