Managing the details and intricacies of a multistate jewelry chain with Web sales had outpaced Christian Bernard Jewelers’ aging and disjointed IT system. Executives couldn’t rely on its sales numbers, stock levels, profit margins, or sales commissions before double-checking data. Support, once costly, was unavailable. After many evaluations, management chose Microsoft Dynamics™ Retail Management System (RMS) and Microsoft Dynamics GP. MPI-Jeweler® added niche-specific functionality. Today, the CEO has reliable information at near-realtime speeds. The CFO closes books in days, not weeks, and no longer works late doing verification. Sales staff don’t call weekly to query paychecks. Perhaps, most important, purchasing is now based on exact knowledge of which products sell best at each store, so display cases are appropriately stocked and “negative inventory” cannot occur.
Situation
In its 30-year history, Christian Bernard Jewelers, headquartered in Secaucus, New Jersey, has expanded its United States chain to 15 stores in a dozen states with 150 employees. Internet sales are filled and managed by the St. Louis, Missouri, store. Each store carries approximately 2,000 SKUs and has access to nearly 100,000 for ordering or historical comparisons.
A trend-setter among elite jewelers, Christian Bernard creates original and made-to-order designs and offers a wide range of loose diamonds, gemstones, watches, and jewelry designed by Féraud, Fontenay, Guy LaRoche, Hearts on Fire, Konstantino, and others.
Image of Rings by Feraud and earrings by Guy Laroche.
But in 2005, a Unisys mainframe and Purple Cactus point-of-sale systems in stores weren’t keeping pace with the company’s demand for tighter controls, a need to pinpoint profit centers, and the tight purchasing management so crucial to jewelers.
“Monthly books seldom closed on time,” says Isabelle Fabian, Chief Executive Officer, “and even then our numbers weren’t reliable. Ramifications went all through the company. We often felt paralyzed because people were skeptical about sales figures that might change tomorrow.
“Stock levels were uncertain. What should we order? Where should we send which items? Then imagine what happens when sales associates’ paychecks didn’t reflect all their sales!”
Tetyana Pererodova, Chief Financial Officer, says, “To compensate for system delays and uncertainties, my staff, MIS, and I put in extra hours, double-checked different printouts against each other, called stores, looked at faxes, and worked late because our ‘automation’ still required too many manual tasks.
“Reconciling cash, checks, and credit cards was always a problem because we couldn’t specify tender type, and fields weren’t linked. Many times, we parsed the day’s sales transaction by transaction. You can’t make queries on a stack of printouts.”
Lacking Clarity
“We weren’t in the dark ages,” reports Bjorn Ottosson, Director of Information Systems, “because we always had good processes and business systems. But the stores’ POS, our home-office merchandising system, and our accounting software never communicated well. We could audit and correct store data in the home office, but couldn’t send our corrections back to the stores, so their data remained uncertain. Transactions and purchases weren’t accurately posted, so we often posted the sale before we posted the purchase, resulting in negative inventory.
“We had no support for our server, dealt with tricky conversions between systems, and had no visibility into our POS data structure. To help managers see images of jewelry to make buying decisions, we had to extract mainframe data overnight and match it up with images using Microsoft Access.”
Fabian adds, “In specifying our new system, not only did we want all those problems cured, we knew that transparently obvious ease-of-use was vital. For holidays, we bring in extra associates who must learn about jewelry fast. Our POS can’t give them more barriers to learning. Customers are very demanding about jewelry transactions. They’re often in a hurry in crowded stores and they dislike errors.”
Solution
Ottosson says, “We had liked MPI Systems’ work on an earlier database imaging project and we knew their jewelry experience would speed up system definition and increase our confidence. We evaluated several products and vendors, choosing Microsoft Dynamics RMS with MPI-Jeweler enhancements. Now each store has its own decentralized Microsoft SQL Server MSDE database for redundancy, uniformity, easy access, and data portability. The solution is open, affordable, and easy to work with.” MPI Systems, Inc. specializes in a wide variety of Microsoft® SQL Server® database software applications for the jewelry industry, including wholesale, retail, and manufacturing segments.
“Each part of our solution can be customized to our specific business rules and change as we grow,” says Ottosson. MPI-Jeweler delivers industry-specialized functions for managing jewelry, watches, diamonds, gems, and components. It allows four images per item, 24 user-defined fields, and supports appraisals, work orders, job bags, process tracking, ring tags, and rat-tail tags.
Microsoft Dynamics™ Retail Management System (RMS) Store Operations database software and MPI-Jeweler® reside in each store to speed up and record jewelry transactions and provide store-level visibility and management. The main-office software, Microsoft Dynamics RMS Headquarters, collects stores’ data so central management can see and filter chainwide results with near realtime speed.With Microsoft Dynamics RMS Headquarters, familiar spreadsheet analog, central employees see and control inventory levels, prices, specials, interstore transfers, and sales events chainwide, by store, department, or region. Enterprise data then goes to Microsoft Dynamics GP for complete financials, tax, and other reporting.
After substantial needs analysis, process documentation, system planning, and preparation, the installations went live on June 1, 2006.
Benefits
CEO Fabian says, “Now that we can access reliable information at near real-time speeds, it’s money in the bank—from several avenues. We’ve saved thousands of dollars through accurate inventory control, wiser buying, and doing those jobs much faster by eliminating useless steps.”
Brilliant Numbers
“Our biggest gain is reconciling whenever we like, usually weekly,” she says. “So profit margins don't roller-coaster as they used to because our purchasing and selling are in sync. It was very stressful to have your PM fall three points overnight. We’ve designed our own inventory and sales-analysis interface to see patterns and predict what-ifs. Managers and staff tell me it’s fantastic to have clean data so they can make confident decisions.”
Pererodova reports, “Everybody is happy with our numbers. We work better, smarter, and faster with the new system. I know each morning what happened yesterday in every store. We used to close the month between the 15th and the 20th. Now we can close in three to five days. That’s due largely to a clean data path from stores to the main office to Microsoft Dynamics GP.”
“Company open-to-buy and budgeting are on target, so we can analyze needs and fulfill them daily and weekly, instead of monthly. We replenish what sold well, so we can sell more of it. Jewelry is harder than most retail because small packages cost thousands of dollars, and small decisions leverage tens of thousands. Now we know what’s in transit from our warehouse and between stores. We see what’s committed. And, at last, reconciling different tenders has disappeared as a chore. It’s invisible; it happens automatically.”
The Foundation
Ottosson enumerates the underlying benefits of integrated Microsoft SQL Server databases in each store and at the main office. “We have saved tens of thousands of dollars because of this solution’s openness, flexibility, and simplicity. Microsoft Dynamics RMS has no trouble handling our 100,000 SKUs. And 40,000 come with an image. We don’t pay or wait for an expensive consultant so we can see our data. We respond quickly to aberrations and special requests. We customize our own reports at stores and at headquarters.
“Stores use reports to track performance and manage inventory. Suppliers and purchasing are tied in from each store to main office to Microsoft Dynamics GP. Our ‘negative inventory’ problem is gone. The solution won’t let us promise something we can’t deliver, which avoids customer upsets. We built our own special-orders module that resides in stores and communicates over the Microsoft RMS network. Our old difficulty in getting and distributing graphics is gone. Now we plug images into RMS Headquarters and the entire team have full visibility.
“The Global Customer capability in Microsoft Dynamics RMS lets us share customer data chainwide and even clean our address files with NCOA (National Change of Address) services. Mailings have gone from a 10 percent return rate to a few pieces. We use the TableSync feature to send custom data between stores and headquarters. Without it, we’d need third-party tools to manage special orders, consignment, and our memo diamond wallet, where we manage short-term diamond consignment.
“Previously, when a paycheck didn’t match commissions owed, if HR couldn’t figure it out, I had to make time to analyze it. Was the problem due to a return, a credit bounce, a split? That chore is gone now because all those factors are visible to sales associates.
“At the POS level, flags and settings force a user-conformity that standardizes situations. In the past, store staff might skip or put off the steps or notes that explain anomalies. That’s another chore eliminated.”
Reflecting on the Process
“We did more things right this time compared to the Y2K POS conversion in 1999. We got the right software from the right seller. Richard Kaye and MPI’s years of jewelry experience and his software opened the door for us to take full control of Microsoft Dynamics RMS and mold it to our industry’s needs using MPI-Jeweler.
“We also waited for all our departments to approve the rollout by meeting each one’s requirements checklist before we went live. That took an extra year, but we see today that the extra preparation is paying us back.
“Next time, I would do even broader and deeper analysis on accounting requirements so we can build them into the original system. And it’s always wise to spread conversion responsibilities over many people, not concentrate them onto one person.”
Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System
Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) offers a complete store automation solution for small and medium-sized retailers, streamlining point-of-sale (POS), customer service, and store inventory management, and providing real-time access to key business metrics. Microsoft Dynamics RMS is a comprehensive solution for single-store and multi-store retailers that empowers independent proprietors, store managers, and cashiers through affordable and easy-to-use automation. Microsoft Dynamics RMS has the flexibility and scalability to grow with a retailer’s business. It works with the Microsoft Office System, Microsoft Windows Small Business Server, and leading financial applications to provide end-to-end support from the cash register to the back office.
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