Solution to Support Growth Objectives and Fast Fashion Initiatives for South Africa’s
Largest Apparel, Footwear and Textiles Retailer -
London, UK and Burlington, Mass. – July 10, 2007 – Eqos, Inc. ( www.eqos.com ), a leading provider of on-demand global sourcing and supplier management solutions for the retail supply chain, today announced that Edgars Consolidated Stores Limited (Edcon) has gone live with Eqos’ global sourcing solution. Operating as Edgars department store since 1929, Edcon is South Africa’s leading clothing, footwear and textiles retailing group. The company manages ten retail brands (Edgars, Jet, C N A, Red Square, Boardmans, Legit, Jet Shoes, Temptations, Prato and JetMart) in nearly 1,000 stores across Southern Africa; annual sales top more than $2.3 billion.
“We are pleased to announce the roll-out of Eqos’ global sourcing capabilities to selected Edgars and Jet merchandising divisions along with their local and international agents and suppliers,” said Edcon’s business integration executive Calvin Low. “This solution is enabling us to proactively manage critical path activities from initial product design through supplier collaboration to purchase order processes. Furthermore, the Eqos global sourcing solution is introducing a harmonized set of best practice business processes for our buyers, QA, agents and suppliers to support the rigorous demands of global sourcing.”
Edcon executive buyers worked closely with a joint Eqos and Accenture team on this project. The initial deployment will improve the private label merchandise buying processes for apparel lines offered by Edgars, the company’s department store brand, and Jet, the company’s discount outlet brand. The team has integrated the sourcing application with various Edcon systems, such as Oracle Retail (Retek) and external logistics service providers, thus delivering a seamless sourcing process and minimizing the workload on the buyers. Edcon plans to roll-out the solutions to additional apparel categories and general merchandise later this year.
Jane Biddle, Eqos VP of U.S. operations and chief marketing officer, said, “As leading retailers such as Edcon are looking to scale buying operations, working collaboratively with suppliers worldwide becomes a critical issue. The challenge, however, lies in automating what has traditionally been a disparate set of manual tasks involving cumbersome spreadsheets and communication limitations. For more than a decade, Eqos has worked in partnership with the world’s largest retailers to improve the business and sourcing processes that contribute to expanding margins and sales revenues; we look forward to continued success in this regard with Edcon.”
Mr. Low added, “The improved visibility of the overall critical path associated with the sourcing process will give Edcon executives a high-level view of sourcing processes, promoting comprehensive performance analysis and ‘Fast Fashion’ capabilities. In addition, every function within supplier collaboration will be recorded and tracked with Eqos’ global sourcing solution.” He further stated that Edcon expects Eqos’ critical path capabilities will substantially improve the efficiency of the company’s buying teams across various brands and product categories, resulting in faster product lifecycles, and ultimately, improved margins.
Edcon was purchased earlier this year by Boston-based private investment firm Bain Capital, which acquired the company’s entire ordinary share capital for more than USD $3.6B. The company, now fully owned by Bain, is no longer traded on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange.
About Edcon
Edgars Consolidated Stores Limited (Edcon) is the leading clothing, footwear and textiles (CFT) retailing group in South Africa trading through a range of retail formats. The first Edgars store opened in Johannesburg in 1929. Since then, the company has grown to ten retail brands trading in over 950 stores in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho. For more information, visit www.edcon.co.za .
About Eqos, Inc.
Eqos is a leading provider of on-demand global sourcing and supplier management solutions for the retail supply chain. Founded in 1997, the company has offices in the U.S., UK, and Hong Kong. Eqos` solutions streamline processes associated with private label merchandise strategies from product concept through production and ultimate delivery to the retailer. Eqos` solutions leverage its SOA (Services Oriented Architecture) along with retailer legacy enterprise and supply chain applications to build forward thinking, cross-enterprise processes that promote collaboration between retailers, their suppliers, buying offices and other trading partners. Today, Eqos` solutions are used by major retailers such as Best Buy, Debenhams, Sainsbury`s, Tesco and Virgin Megastores. More information can be found at www.eqos.com .
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills and technologies to help clients improve their performance. With more than 152,000 people in 49 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$16.65 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2006. Its home page is www.accenture.com .
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