With its sights set firmly on the US, European and Australian markets, Charles Tyrwhitt, the British multichannel retailer & many times ECMOD Award winner, with a turnover of £160m, is making major investments in people, property and technology. This forms part of a global transformation project that will elevate the brands’ strategy for multichannel, international expansion.
To maintain its adherence to old-fashioned principles of service, the company has commissioned an entire systems overhaul that will enable it to preserve its core brand values, to deliver a consistent customer experience across all touchpoints. Nick Wheeler, the founder of the business, is opening his fourth Charles Tyrwhitt store in New York in 2015 to help further establish a foothold in a lucrative market where the brand has stores in Chicago and Washington DC. He said, “When we do something, we do it really well.”
Charles Tyrwhitt’s strategic ERP partner, K3 Retail will deliver a unified and fully integrated global platform based on Microsoft Dynamics AX. The system will manage the entire international business, with a focus on the centralisation of all business data for one version of the truth to put the customer – existing and new – at the heart of all operations. Once implemented, the retail system will drive customer engagement by centralising the fundamental omnichannel elements that impact the customer – product, transactions and channels. This will be further supported by K3’s business intelligence suite to unify and manage all business data for global insight.
Simon Kerry, CIO at Charles Tyrwhitt, pictured right, said, “Our biggest challenge is the validation and accuracy of data across the business. The existing systems are out-dated, disparate and restrictive. We needed a platform that would enable growth on an international level and drive a better customer experience at the front end, while driving efficiency at the back-end.”
He continued, “Microsoft Dynamics AX will do just this and in addition, it can be rolled out to new territories across the world, reducing barriers of entry into new markets with local language, currency and distribution – this is where K3 came in, to support the initiative and drive growth.”
Building on the stability, performance, ease of maintenance, and rich functionality of Microsoft Dynamics for Retail, Charles Tyrwhitt and K3 Retail will create customer-focused solutions including personalisation, mobile and online marketing. Phase one of the project started
in November 2013 and was complete at the end of May 2014. The project is expected to span a 24 month period, inclusive of four initial rollout phases; finance, buying and merchandising, retail and call centre, and will use K3’s AX| is fashion module, which can provide end to end lifecycle management, from initial garment design and production all the way through to channel allocation and merchandising.
John Little, Sales Director of K3 Retail, says, “This project will transform the efficiency of the business to enable trading in any part of the world. The scale of this venture not only demonstrates our omnichannel expertise but our capability to support global expansion.”
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