ICT and e-Business Impact in the Retail Industry - empirica

e-Business in the Retail Sectorsystem, the Marketing department received sales figures from individual salesrepresentatives on Excel sheets at the end of each month and data was manually keyedinto the central accounting system. There was no guarantee that figures were correct atthe time. With the e-deal solution, sales data is automatically transmitted from the tills tothe marketing department on a daily basis. The whole process is therefore now efficientlyorganised and automated.Future developments of the solution, such as the upgrade of the software version as wellas the synchronisation of the Outlook calendar with the e-deal calendar are planned for2008. Thanks to the success of the project for the ‘professionals group’ segment, thedeployment of CRM tools across other Casino sales departments is envisaged.5.5.3 ImpactThe management of the hypermarket branch is very satisfied with the first resultsachieved following implementation of the solution. Users have adopted the tool to suittheir sales process and feedback is very positive especially since the tool is simplifyingdaily working processes.The impacts of the solution can be summarised in efficiency gains for the sales force andthe marketing department, productivity gains for the till employees and in improvement oflogistics, quality, hygiene, security and environment management.Hypermarket sales representatives in charge of the ‘professionals group’segmentAll customer information is consolidated in a centralised database that salesrepresentatives can access. 200.000 contacts have already been entered into thedatabase which is used by sales representatives to get to know customers and targetmarketing actions to the specific profile of a customer.The sales process is eased owing to a reduction of manual processes for schedulingcustomer meetings. These meetings are organised to follow-up on existing customersand to investigate new customers. The meetings are directly managed via an onlinecalendar shared between the telemarketing company taking the appointments and thesales representatives.Sales representatives are able to better match preferences and needs of the customersthanks to detailed data available on their purchase habits. Representatives can nownegotiate prices, propose specific promotions to customers to reduce stocks or organisespecific events for targeted customers. This will probably have a positive impact on therelationships with the customer.Regarding the management of their own activities, sales representatives now have clearvisibility on their daily turnover and their position amongst the national sales force. Thisallows them to better manage their sales activity and to exactly know if they are in linewith their sales objective.Hypermarket branches marketing departmentActivities of the entire ‘professionals group’ can now be controlled from an accountancyand marketing point of view. Sales data of the income generated by the ‘professionalsgroup’ of each hypermarket is automatically gathered from the tills and represents reliable153