"The ability to gain insight into our customers' preferences to make more informed merchandising decisions is a critical component of our strategy to exceed the expectations of our customers." - Finish Line executive vice president and chief merchandising officer Scott Hoffman
To maximize performance while reducing costs and decreasing the complexity of its IT infrastructure, Finish Line will also implement Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud.
"At the umbrella level, personalization is about guiding the consumer to the best products and services for them in the easiest way. It's the notion of 'guided serendipity.'"
"Our customers understand that improved performance leads to an improved customer experience, which can help drive top-line revenue," said Ken Volpe, senior vice president, Product Development, Oracle
During the interview, Belk broke down how the $600 million, allocated for the 2011-2014 period, is being spent. "We are investing in IT in a very significant way - $210 million is going into new capabilities. It's a 27-month journey," Belk said, citing the installation of a new Oracle enterprise system, including demand forecasting, merchandising financial planning and size optimization. Another $270 million is allocated for new stores; expansions; remodels, from full-store renovations to department redos, and higher ad spending, with about 10 percent for branding, while still being promotional.
The company will also implement Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle, E-Business Suite and Oracle Database as part of its strategy to better serve customers and streamline operations across all its brands
The multi-year IT initiative that Charming Shoppes is embarking on will be nothing less than "a transformation of our technology, distribution and supply chain capabilities," according to CIO Michael Barrett. Encompassing upgrades of core systems that include the point-of-sale, merchandising, inventory, financials, warehouse and order management, the 1,857-store retailer's efforts are projected to drive $25 to $30 million in cost savings within a two-year time frame.
"...the ATG commerce platform not only has the robustness but also the ability to customize and personalize, to give the guest a much more personalized experience. Finally mobile was really important to us. We saw a huge uptick in mobile over the holidays. We wanted a platform where we could use that same platform and put a mobile front end on it and we knew it would work well."
The timing of this particular release couldn't be more appropriate though, if you remember earlier this week Oracle talked us through its thoughts on customer experience management at the Experience Revolution event in New York...
"Recent research from Oracle reveals another benefit of live chat - it enables consumers to multi-task while holding a conversation instead of waiting at the end of a phone line."