Front cover Workforce Management and Adaptive Execution for Midsize and Large Retailers

Transcription

1 Front cover Workforce Management and Adaptive Execution for Midsize and Large Retailers Redguides for Business Leaders David L. Andrews Ensure consistent store-level execution of promotions, recalls, product launches, and other tasks and projects Take advantage of smartphones and other mobile devices to increase employee efficiency and improve customer engagement Drive rapid ROI with an integrated platform of task and workforce management and Adaptive Execution components

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3 Executive overview Retail chains spend millions of dollars a year planning their strategies for merchandising, promotions, product offering, customer service, and workforce management. But it can be a long way from a retailer s corporate offices to the selling floor. Along the way, inconsistent execution of the plans of corporate marketing, IT, merchandising, and store operations can fail to bring the expected results. Poor coordination can wreak havoc on operations, overwhelming store managers and employees and preventing them from executing strategies that are designed to increase profitability and improve the customer experience. As a result of poor execution, customers do not find the products, promotions, and service they expect. Retailers have successfully overcome these challenges by implementing Reflexis workforce management solutions such as Task Manager, Workforce Manager (labor budgeting, forecasting, and scheduling), KPI Activator, StoreWalk, and Time and Attendance. With these solutions, retailers can overcome the previously described challenges and help their workforce capitalize on opportunities to improve the customer experience. The right person is scheduled at the right time and does the right task to provide the best possible shopping experience. With Reflexis, retailers can achieve the following objectives: Automatically schedule the right person at the right time in compliance with labor laws and union rules while accounting for employee skills and work preferences. Ensure consistent store-level execution of promotions, product launches, merchandising strategy, and store redesigns, all of which are designed to attract customers and increase revenue. Streamline error-prone paper-based processes such as store walks and other compliance audits and inspections. Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs), such as store and departmental sales, and automatically assign best practice corrective action when a metric falls out of tolerance. Sense and respond to important trends and events such as unexpected high-value customer arrival, unusual customer traffic flow, social media buzz, truck arrivals, workforce matters, and Loss Prevention situations. Reflexis workforce management solutions are typically selected and implemented by a team of retail executives from store operations, Human Resources, and IT. The store operations group is the organization that feels the most pain that Reflexis solutions solve. However, other groups within a retail chain also benefit. Merchandising, marketing, finance, and supply chain all benefit through consistent store-level execution of retail strategy, increased sales and profitability, and higher inventory turns. Copyright IBM Corp All rights reserved. 1

4 This IBM Redguide publication explains how retailers can increase sales and improve profitability by implementing the Reflexis Retail Execution Platform of solutions. This paper highlights the task management, labor scheduling, time and attendance, KPI, and Adaptive Execution solutions of the Reflexis platform. It also explains how, by implementing these solutions, retailers can control labor costs, ensure consistent store-level execution, and provide a superior quality of customer engagement. Business challenges After investing so much time and money on strategic planning, why do retail chains struggle to execute their plans as intended? The following reasons for this inconsistency in strategy execution are remarkably consistent across all types of retailers, including grocery, apparel, home improvement, specialty, department store, and more: Unclear and nonprioritized communication Store managers waste hours per day reading and responding to duplicate and incorrect s. Instead of doing what they are supposed to do, store managers spend too much trying to determine what exactly corporate wants them to do and chasing down the most current information. Manual, error prone paper-based processes Store managers waste time by using manual tools, such as calculators and spreadsheets, to perform tedious but necessary tasks, such as writing the weekly labor schedule and calculating payroll. They also must read through various paper-based reports full of information that does not pertain to their stores and for which action cannot be taken because the reports summarize the results of store operations from days or weeks ago. And, many times the reports tell store managers what happened, but not what to do about it. The opportunity to systemize best practice response to challenges and opportunities is lost. Lack of a structured channel for asking questions and getting answers Many times store managers who receive a project have questions or problems. Too often, their and voice mail to their regional managers or corporate become lost in a black hole. Store managers do not get the information they need on a timely basis. Inability to sense and respond to conditions as they happen When store managers are stuck in the office, buried under detail work, they cannot be on the sales floor helping customers and coaching associates. They miss out on important trends and conditions, such as the arrival of a high value customer, a late truck delivery, unusual customer traffic flow, and more. Opportunities to improve customer engagement and product availability are lost, along with sales. Retailers have successfully overcome these challenges by implementing Reflexis workforce management solutions such as Task Manager, Workforce Manager (labor budgeting, forecasting, and scheduling), KPI Activator, StoreWalk, and Time and Attendance. 2 Workforce Management and Adaptive Execution for Midsize and Large Retailers

5 Business value of Reflexis solutions With Reflexis solutions, retailers can overcome the previously mentioned challenges and help their workforce capitalize on opportunities to improve the customer experience in the following ways: Streamlined and prioritized communication Instead of wasting hours reading and responding to duplicate and incorrect s and determining what to do, store managers access a daily calendar planner. Store managers have one place to go to view a to-do list, prioritized in alignment with company strategy. When task details change, the information is updated inline within the task. No longer must managers chase down the latest or call a manager at a nearby store to get the latest information. Store managers know exactly what stores are supposed to do and when to do it. Sales driving initiatives, such as promotions and product launches, are completed as intended in each store. Efficient and accurate processes with best practice corrective action to underperforming metrics Instead of using spreadsheets and calculators to write the schedule and complete payroll, the employee schedule is written for store managers. The solution factors in all the complexities such as labor laws, union rules, and employee skills, and work preferences. Workforce schedules are legally compliant, maximize the skills of employees, and respect their preferences, which lead to improved morale, lower turnover, and better customer service. Instead of spending hours per week writing the schedule, store managers spend just a few minutes reviewing it and making minor modifications, if any. Employee payroll costs are accurately calculated in seconds. Instead of reading through after-the-fact paper reports, managers track a few key metrics. If performance suffers, the system automatically assigns and tracks completion of best practice corrective action. Closed loop, two-way feedback to support continuous improvement If store managers have a follow-up question to a project, they can ask the question in line with the task. Corporate immediately sees the question in context with the project and can provide fast assistance. The ability to sense and respond to conditions as they happen Retail chains have already invested in many store technologies such as inventory control, video surveillance, traffic monitoring, and social media. In several cases, these technologies are owned by a specific function, such as supply chain, loss prevention, and marketing, and they do not talk to each other. An Adaptive Execution platform integrates all these different solutions. With this platform, store employees can immediately detect out-of-stock situations, loss prevention emergencies, high value customer arrival, and social media buzz, and then respond appropriately. Store employees respond adeptly to surprises and improve the overall customer experience. The Reflexis Retail Execution Platform The Reflexis Retail Execution Platform consists of a family of integrated solutions, all of which are developed by Reflexis and built on a common architecture and retail operating model. This retail-specific solution is built entirely in consideration of retail-centric requirements. The Reflexis Retail Execution Platform provides a family of solutions for retailers to drive execution of their merchandising planning, store operations, and vendor operations. The platform is made up of three suites, which are enhanced by Reflexis Adaptive Real-Time Execution components and mobility solutions (see Figure 1 on page 4). 3

6 The platform consists of the following solutions: Labor Operations Suite, which includes Labor Budgeting, Forecasting, Scheduling, Employee Self Service, and Time and Attendance Store Execution Suite, which includes Reflexis Task Manager, StoreWalk, and KPI Activator Corporate Operations Suite, which includes Reflexis Vendor Performance Manager, Corporate Process Manager, and Workload Optimizer Reflexis Adaptive Real-Time Execution Components, which include integration with traffic intelligence, video monitoring, supply chain, RFID, and social media analytics These components provide real-time alerts and best practice actions to provide a higher quality of customer engagement. Mobility Solutions With these solutions, managers can access Workforce Manager, Time and Attendance, Task Manager, StoreWalk, KPI Activator, and real-time alerts on handheld devices, including smartphones, tablet computers, and more. Reflexis solutions are developed from the ground up, by Reflexis, to fully integrate with each other. Retailers can implement all of the suites in the Reflexis platform or start by addressing a certain area, such as store execution, and implement additional solutions later. By using the Reflexis Retail Execution Platform, a retailer can coordinate cross-functional planning, ensure consistent execution, and respond proactively to key metrics by using best practices. The platform also includes hosting, deployment, and learning solutions to eliminate complexity, increase employee proficiency, and reduce the cost of implementation and management of mobility solutions. Figure 1 illustrates an overview of the Retail Execution Platform. Figure 1 The Reflexis Retail Execution Management Platform Labor Operations Suite The Labor Operations Suite includes solutions for budgeting, forecasting, scheduling, employee self-service, and time and attendance. Reflexis Workforce Manager Reflexis Workforce Manager is a web-based labor budgeting, forecasting, and scheduling solution. It precisely integrates task management workload with top-down and bottom-up labor needs to ensure that every store has the optimal schedule to deliver a consistent and 4 Workforce Management and Adaptive Execution for Midsize and Large Retailers

7 positive customer experience. This product has the right people who perform the right tasks at the right time at the right cost. It includes budgeting, forecasting, scheduling, optimization, and reporting. Reflexis solutions understand store uniqueness, view full workload demand, and employ top-down and bottom-up methods to precisely forecast labor demand. Reflexis then generates labor schedules by using the fastest scheduling engine based on new retail-specific algorithms that are developed at the MIT Operations Lab. By using Reflexis, retailers can generate schedules at a rate of seconds per store. These schedules incorporate such variables as store formats, size, laws and policies compliance, and employee skills and preferences. Employee schedules maximize resource skills and respect their preferences and availabilities, leading to improved workforce morale, consistent execution, and increased sales. Reflexis Time and Attendance With Reflexis Time and Attendance, accurate control and management comply with labor policies, contracts, and pay rules, plus streamlined payroll processes. Alerts to impending labor violations and overtime enable the retailer to enforce compliance and reduce labor costs. Employees and managers can view schedules, request or approve shift swaps, review employee information, and more on the desktop computer, latest smartphones, or tablet computers. Store Execution Suite The Store Execution Suite provides several solutions for retail operations management. Reflexis Task Manager Reflexis Task Manager drives consistent store execution of corporate initiatives such as sales promotions, merchandising programs, loss prevention controls, store resets, product recalls, and corporate newsletters. The Reflexis single view of projects means that store operations gains a complete view of the project workload planned for store execution. Store operations can run workload simulations, measure the impact of planned workload on store capacity, and balance schedules and priorities to optimize store productivity. Tasks are defined by corporate merchandise and operational planners. Tasks receive appropriate business and gatekeeper reviews and are launched to selected regions, districts, and stores. The application uses role-based assignments to ensure that tasks are completed even when an employee goes on vacation, switches responsibilities, or leaves. (In cases where the primary employee is absent, the task is forwarded to the next available and qualified employee.) Management can view task assignments and task completion status through an easy-to-use dashboard that delivers real-time execution visibility to all levels of the enterprise. Task-based alerts allow management by exception, and performance metrics deliver crucial feedback to planners and management. Reflexis KPI Activator Reflexis KPI Activator delivers an integrated platform for store KPI metrics collection, analysis, and management. Corporate managers can set store KPI objectives, define variance tolerances, and create best practice tasks that are required to remediate violations. The program monitors key metrics in real time, examines them for exceptions, and activates the retail organization to take effective steps. Reflexis streamlines store KPI reporting, eliminating the time and costs of paper or spreadsheet reporting. Real-time KPI tracking identifies problems in real time so that they can be quickly resolved to ensure consistent compliance and performance excellence. 5

8 Reflexis StoreWalk By implementing Reflexis StoreWalk, retailers can plan, execute, and measure store walks and operational-assessment audits. Corporate compliance managers can design audit forms and checklists that consistently measure store compliance. Store and field managers and auditors can download forms to their tablet PCs or handheld devices to conduct audits with offline mobility and convenience. If deficiencies are found, remedy tasks can be started and tracked to resolution. Real-time audit measurements provide retailers with an accurate view of compliance to all levels of the enterprise. Corporate Operations Suite The Corporate Operations Suite assists with critical issues of vendor management. Reflexis Vendor Performance Manager Reflexis Vendor Performance Manager connects the field teams of a retailer to the central office with the tools that are necessary to improve field labor productivity, data timeliness, and accuracy. It provides a more efficient method for field employees, vendors, and merchandising service organizations to perform tasks and collect or update information at the right time, in the right place, and with the right tools and supporting information. Reflexis Corporate Process Manager By using Reflexis Corporate Process Manager, retailers can coordinate the many steps that are involved in complex cross-functional projects, such as new store openings, store resets, and merchandising category reviews. Retail planners in various functional areas, such as merchandising, marketing, real estate, supply chain, finance, and store operations, can gain visibility into task execution status across the enterprise. Planners can monitor the entire process from start to finish, ensure that deadlines are met, and resolve issues in a timely manner. With the ability to manage by exception, the retailer can quickly identify where problems are and which ones are the most critical. Management can drill down to identify the root cause of a problem and take appropriate action. No longer does management have to wait to hear bad news at a regular update meeting, by which time it might be too late to respond. Reflexis Workload Optimizer By implementing Reflexis Workload Optimizer, retailers can generate long-range workload forecasts for merchandising and other corporate initiatives to create an accurate, consolidated labor forecast. With this solution, a retailer can coordinate long-range planning at the corporate level, optimize workloads that are sent to the stores, and maximize employee productivity. Workload Optimizer bridges the gaps that occur when store operations, human resources, merchandising, finance, and other departments do not integrate long-range planning and short-range execution. Corporate planners can allocate the labor that is required to complete marketing, merchandising, loss prevention, and other projects months ahead of time. Then later, they can assign specific tasks as additional information becomes available. Reflexis Adaptive Real-Time Execution Components Reflexis Adaptive Real-Time Execution is a platform of processes and technology that reallocates labor in real time based on in-store events. This platform provides the optimal level of labor and ensures that employees are doing the right thing at the right time to provide the best possible in-store customer experience. The Adaptive Real-Time Execution platform (patent pending) uses real-time data, from any source, such as social media analytics, traffic intelligence, video surveillance, RFID, and workforce and supply chain management applications. It integrates with and interprets incoming messages from these sources and reallocates and directs store labor in real time to perform tasks, synchronizing store-level activities with real-time customer demand. Stores 6 Workforce Management and Adaptive Execution for Midsize and Large Retailers

9 can systemically follow best practices to provide a greater quality of customer engagement, leading to higher revenues. Reflexis has formed partnerships with leading retail technology solution providers to provide a platform that retailers can use to enable stores to detect key events and trends and immediately alert employees with best practice tasks. These leading retail technology solution providers include IBM, Impetus, Indyme, Irisys, and Tyco Retail Solutions. Reflexis Mobility Solutions In the increasingly challenging retail environment, the margin of error for retailers to execute their strategy in stores has been reduced to almost zero. It has never been more important for retailers to ensure that all their managers and employees in the stores and in the field are doing the right thing at the right time. By using Reflexis Mobility Solutions, managers can access Workforce Manager, Time and Attendance, Task Manager, StoreWalk, and KPI Activator on handheld devices, including smartphones, tablet computers, and more. Instead of being stuck in a back office, managers can access Reflexis on the sales floor while helping customers and coaching associates or on the road before a store visit. Managers in the store and in the field can monitor completion and compliance levels, drill down for detail, and complete audits or inspections by using handhelds and smartphones. Instead of going to an office to re-enter information, data is sent in real time, and rolled up to corporate offices for monitoring and management by exception. Managers span of control is greatly increased. Data entry errors are eliminated. Field managers make better driveway decisions: They know which stores or departments to focus on before they leave their office or enter a store. Advantages of Reflexis solutions Reflexis solutions can offer the following advantages among others: Advanced retail labor scheduling algorithms Reflexis provides retail-centric algorithms for forecasting and schedule optimization. Reflexis scheduling algorithms use Near Neighbor Search methods. By using this method, Reflexis can build high-quality schedules with hundreds of constraints in a matter of seconds per store. This advantage makes Reflexis a fast optimization engine that enables retailers to achieve better what-if planning. It also enables retailers to rapidly generate accurate labor schedules that factor in all variables that are critical to support the dynamic needs of retailers: Labor laws, such as minor employee regulations and union rules, all of which can vary by state, county, city, retail brand, and associate classification Employee preferences, availability, skills, and performance Varying store size, format, operating hours, and brand By basing its labor scheduling technology on new algorithms that are developed specifically for retail, Reflexis can rapidly generate wall-to-wall schedules (all employees per store) that factor in employee preferences and abilities. By generating schedules that factor in all of these variables, Reflexis satisfies the retailer s business objectives and improves employee morale (and reduces turnover) by respecting their preferences. Mobility support Reflexis solutions run on the latest smartphones and tablet computers. This way, corporate, regional, and store users can perform administrative tasks, access the latest information, and assign best-practice-based corrective action to respond to changing business conditions. With this support, regional and store managers can view their daily tasks and real-time alerts to key events, all on a single, role-based tablet computer or smartphone. Such events include high 7

10 value patron arrival, stock outs, and unusual customer traffic flow. This support frees managers time by focusing attention on the highest priority items, while on the sales floor where they can spend more time coaching associates and helping customers. Ease of use: UI options Reflexis has done extensive work with store managers and field managers to create an easy-to-use application with minimal training. Reflexis offers multiple UI options: A standard UI that uses conventional screen flows A low-bandwidth version for stores with network limitations A graphical UI with alerts and what I need to do today options to direct the stores to specific actions These UI options can be easily configured for different types of users. Integrated Labor Scheduling and Task Management solution The Reflexis solution provides the integrated tools that retailers need to effectively coordinate corporate planning, optimize schedules, and measure store compliance of sales, merchandising, and operational initiatives. When integrated with Reflexis Task Management, the Labor Scheduling solution enables retailers to minimize labor costs and maximize the ability to execute to plan. In addition to generating schedules that incorporate the workload needed to complete corporate initiatives, retailers can monitor task completion and compliance levels in all stores. The ability to manage by exception enables management to focus attention where it is needed most. Task Management and Labor Scheduling integration Reflexis has defined interface formats so that task-based data, such as required workloads, can flow directly from Reflexis Task Manager into the Reflexis Labor Scheduling engine. After the tasks (on-going or ad hoc) are approved through the approval workflow process of the company, tasks that include such information as required workload and date and time, are published to the Labor Scheduling application. Task Management and Labor Scheduling integration is seamless within Reflexis. Projects that are created in task management are automatically brought into the Labor Scheduling application. Integrated Labor Scheduling and Time and Attendance solution The Reflexis Labor Scheduling and Time and Attendance solutions that make up the Workforce Manager module are built on the same architecture and seamlessly integrate with each other. The solution includes sophisticated reporting and analytical tools. They can monitor labor metrics and issue alerts when they fall out of defined tolerance levels to improve accuracy, control labor costs, and stay in compliance with labor laws and rules. Only with an integrated solution can you accurately plan and analyze changes to potential schedules and their effect on payroll. Planners can perform what-if analysis by using actual pay rules from the Time and Attendance module. (This way, the system can provide a forecast of actual, not estimated or average, labor costs in dollars for the created schedule.) Furthermore, Reflexis integration is seamless and comprehensive. The solution does not rely on mechanisms, such as web services or slow and unwieldy batch import/export processes, to achieve labor scheduling or time and attendance integration. Activity-based scheduling for all tasks The Reflexis operating model, which is integrated with the Reflexis labor scheduler, contains all activities that are executed within each department in a store. An activity contains the following execution details among others: Who (department, skills, and roles) When (timing anchors, fixed duration, and flexible) How many (minimum, maximum, computation rules, rounding rules, and spreading rules) 8 Workforce Management and Adaptive Execution for Midsize and Large Retailers

11 An activity uses user-defined fixed and variable standards, lookup tables, forecasted drivers, and other rules to accurately compute labor requirements for all activities that must be completed in the stores. These activities might be corporate-driven, customer facing, ad hoc, daily, and fixed. The activities can be computed at intervals as granular as 15 minutes. One code base with configurable options to support feature enhancements that are provided to other retailers Other labor scheduling software companies isolate feature improvements for each company in a separate code base. This practice prevents individual retailers from choosing to employ the best practices and feature enhancements of other retailers in the software company s customer base. But with Reflexis, feature enhancements are added to a common code base, are available to all customers, and can be turned on by using simple configuration changes. The Reflexis customer can benefit from the best practices and feature enhancements that are made available to their retail peers. Simple way to manage activity definitions In addition to supporting the most accurate activity definitions (described previously), Reflexis provides a simple way to add and edit and to calculate total workload. This way, users have a simple management mechanism to manage activity definitions with the ability to see the impact across all stores. Single integrated platform, which includes budgeting Other labor scheduling software companies force retailers to use separate modules for budgeting and scheduling. When business conditions change, users are required to re-enter data into the separate systems. Otherwise, the separate modules will be turned off. With the Reflexis integrated solution, changes only have to be made once, with changes rippled through all modules. No longer do retailers have to enter and re-enter data into multiple modules. Intuitive nature Due to the intuitive nature and high ease of use, store-level employees can readily embrace the solution, leading to widespread acceptance across the company. Furthermore, every module of the Reflexis suite is integrated with the core operating model, which describes all aspects of the company s operations parameters, procedures, and policies. Such activities as changing a specific or group of stores hours of business is accomplished easily from one central location in the application, without requiring an administrator to navigate through multiple panels in different software applications. Most consistent and accurate forecasting engine Reflexis provides multiple forecast models and several configuration options for outliers, including smoothing, inflation handling, and trend period selection to generate the best forecasts and highest forecast accuracy. Additionally, the Reflexis best-fit process can select the most appropriate model for each driver. With the Reflexis forecasting module, the annual plan, period plan, and short-term forecast are all consistent, because they all use the same forecasting models and calculation methods. Common operating model to save time and money The Reflexis Operating Model enables the global definition of the entities, attributes, activities, events, workload drivers, labor standards, workload calculation methods, and other characteristics of the retail enterprise. Reflexis solutions running on top of the Reflexis Operating Model improve the ease of system maintenance. For example, if a store (or group of stores) changes its operating hours, a manager can update the system with just a couple of mouse clicks. Changes made to the operating model ripple through all appropriate Reflexis modules. A manager no longer has to go through multiple panels in different applications to update the system. 9

12 Highly configurable solution Due to the high configurability of Reflexis solutions, Reflexis software products can meet current and future needs through simple configuration changes. Functional granularity Reflexis solutions can help to define a task in great detail: What is it How to do it Who is expected to do it When is it expected Alerting mechanisms attached to its nonexecution Any retailer with geographically dispersed stores will benefit greatly from such features. Store-level specificity Although stores might all seem similar, each one has an individual character, and its needs are slightly different. Reflexis captures these differences in the greatest detail. This feature is critical for targeted campaigns with store-specific data. Advanced search ability, including the ability to use simple, Google type searches This search feature is useful to learn from historical projects and helps retailers to not repeat execution miss-steps. Retailers with hundreds of stores and high labor turnover rates need to provide a system that enables new store-level executives to easily learn from the past experiences of others. Advanced workload calculation The Reflexis workload calculation engine with simulation features can analyze the full impact of a project on stores. This feature is critical to prevent stores from being overloaded with tasks on some days and labor from being underused on others. Reliability. The n-tiered Reflexis solutions are fully scalable at each tier and provide full support for failover and resilience. Reflexis supports hardware and software load balancers, web clustering, and storage redundancy. Reflexis also supports hot and cold disaster recovery. The ability to institutionalize best practice actions With high turnover in retail, the ability to enforce project start time, order of task execution, and delegation becomes critical. Reflexis provides features for task/project creation. With the integrated solution, retailers can automatically assign best-practice corrective action in response to real-time metrics. Truly optimized schedules By using the Reflexis Labor Scheduling solution, retailers can budget, forecast, and schedule labor on several key factors, including sales forecasts, corporate initiatives, ad hoc assignments, and employee skills and work preferences. By scheduling labor based on the actual (not estimated) work required to be completed in each store, the Labor Scheduling solution helps retailers to efficiently execute corporate plans and daily operational activities. Scalability The Reflexis Labor Scheduling application is based on highly efficient algorithms. These algorithms can factor in many complex constraints (such as work rules, preferences, and other employee-centric variables) and quickly generate schedules. 10 Workforce Management and Adaptive Execution for Midsize and Large Retailers

13 Reflexis and IBM IBM and Reflexis Systems work closely to provide scalable and reliable retail workforce management solutions. These solutions integrate with IBM products and enable retailers to increase sales, boost store-level productivity, and improve customer service. Reflexis has successfully completed validation on the IBM Retail Industry Framework. This software platform represents usage patterns plus service-oriented architecture (SOA)-enabled middleware and industry-specific extensions that help solve retail business problems. Reflexis solutions have also been validated as Ready for IBM WebSphere Portal software. Software that is validated as Ready for IBM WebSphere Portal software works with your existing applications in an on-demand operating environment. Reflexis software is also validated as Ready for IBM DB2 data server software, which means retailers can implement solutions faster and more easily and can reduce development costs. By selecting software that is validated for IBM platforms, retailers can take advantage of the latest technology, use existing IT investments, gain access to the continually expanding global ecosystem of other IBM Business Partners, and rapidly realize business value. Reflexis and IBM are also working closely on training, education, marketing, joint sales opportunities, and many other initiatives. Reflexis was one of the first software companies in North America to be certified as Ready for IBM PureSystems. IBM has established a new market category called expert integrated systems that combines the flexibility of a general-purpose system, the elasticity of cloud, and the simplicity of an appliance tuned to the workload, fundamentally changing the experience and economics of IT. Now it is even faster and easier to implement Reflexis Task Manager, from design to purchase to maintenance, thanks to IBM PureSystems. Reflexis and IBM are working closely to dramatically increase the speed of deployment of retail task management and other workforce management solutions, such as labor scheduling, time and attendance, and adaptive real-time components. These solutions also reduce the risks and inefficiencies that are inherent in traditional fixed, deterministic IT solutions. Reflexis Task Manager is enabled on both the IBM PureFlex System and IBM PureApplication System. Case study: Supermarket chain In this case study, a supermarket chain with 300-plus stores had a big workforce management challenge. In fact, it had many challenges that were caused by a workforce management platform that was really a collection of slow, old, and obsolete applications that did not work well together. This case study shows how the supermarket chain has increased efficiency and accuracy, controls costs, and optimizes scheduling with Reflexis workforce management. Reflexis workforce management solutions are implemented in about 300 store and nonstore locations of the chain, including call centers, pharmacy operations, and distribution centers. 11

14 Business challenge: New workforce management platform to improve efficiency, execution, and customer service Store leaders and partners are required to interact as much as possible with customers and provide the best possible shopping experience. Therefore, employees could not afford to spend an inordinate amount of time on detail work. Such work includes workforce scheduling, payroll processing, filing and reading paper reports, and going through and responding to corporate and voice mail. Unfortunately, the company s existing workforce management system was made of several separate applications. It presented many challenges, such as the following examples, to the goal of best serving its customers to meet their needs at a fair return on investment: Workforce management system was unstable and obsolete. The retail chain relied on a mixture of separate labor budgeting, forecasting, and scheduling and payroll processing programs that were out of date and had stability problems. The company determined it could no longer afford to rely on enterprise critical applications, such as employee scheduling and timekeeping, that were not consistently up and running and used by employees. In some business units, the scheduling and time and attendance systems were so old, hard to use, and slow that employees stopped using them and reverted to manual tools such as spreadsheets. Separate applications cost time and money. The retail chain relied on different applications to generate labor forecasts and schedules, track employee time, and calculate payroll. Generated labor schedules were exported into a separate time and attendance application to calculate payroll cost. If the cost per schedule needed to be revised, the process was required to be rerun, by starting with the initial workforce management system. All the data import and export and manual input tasks required the company to employ a small army of administrators. Their full-time responsibilities were dedicated to workforce management data input, review, and modification tasks. Furthermore, labor schedules and cost estimates might be out of sync. Exposure opened the retail chain to time theft and business rule violations. The reliance on manual time and attendance input and review processes exposed the company to the risk of employees who worked and were paid for unauthorized shifts and other forms of employee time theft. The manual nature of its existing systems meant that the supermarket chain struggled to attain visibility into shift rule violations, employees who punched in when not scheduled, and overtime conditions. Violations were only caught through time-intensive manual review by administrators. Non-optimized scheduling drove up labor costs and did not always meet customer service needs. The previous scheduling process of the retail chain did not account for the impact of inflation on the labor budget. The labor budget was pegged as a simple percentage of sales. The problem with that basic budgeting model is that, during an inflationary period, the company spent more on labor than it required. The company also needed a system to institute best practices in employee scheduling to account for fluctuating customer traffic flow, which included sales spikes driven by holidays and other external events. Expensive workforce management infrastructure drove up IT costs. The existing system of the retail chain ran on web application and database server software that required the company to pay continual annual licensing fees. The company wanted to move to a more cost-effective and reliable open source platform. 12 Workforce Management and Adaptive Execution for Midsize and Large Retailers

15 Call to action: Implementing an integrated workforce management platform With all of the challenges facing the supermarket chain, the company decided to make it easier for store managers, partners, administrators, and IT staff to do their jobs more efficiently and to provide a better shopping experience in their stores. The company determined that the best way to address its challenges caused by its existing workforce management applications was to implement a new workforce management solution. This solution had to be stable, scalable, easy to maintain and use, and integrated. The following Reflexis solutions were implemented: Reflexis Workforce Manager (labor budgeting, forecasting, and scheduling) Reflexis Task Manager Reflexis StoreWalk Reflexis Time and Attendance Within a few months of implementing the Reflexis platform, the supermarket chain saw the following benefits, in addition to others, in its stores and nonstore locations: System reliability with full disaster recovery certification As explained previously, previous workforce management solutions suffered from stability problems, which were unacceptable for mission-critical applications. With Reflexis, the company now has a stable system that can grow and adapt to their changing business needs. Increased efficiency in labor scheduling and time for store management to focus on other issues With Reflexis automated labor scheduling in place, the time it took for store managers to complete the weekly schedule is dramatically reduced. Instead of spending hours per week writing the schedule, managers who are responsible for scheduling spend a few minutes reviewing the system-generated schedule and making minor modifications. The time per week devoted by each manager to writing the labor schedule was reduced by about 5 hours. Depending on the size of the store, more than one manager can be responsible for weekly labor scheduling at each location in the chain. Reflexis freed up many hours of store management time annually by streamlining the labor scheduling process. Flexibility in scheduling to adapt to changing business needs The integrated Reflexis labor budgeting, forecasting, and scheduling system gave the supermarket chain greater flexibility to respond to its cross-scheduling and mid-week scheduling needs. Under the old system, a change in the schedule due to employee callouts or sales fluctuations required a flurry of retyping and re-exporting data in multiple systems. Now activities, such as partner borrow requests and schedule changes due to sales fluctuations, are performed with a few mouse clicks and are automatically visible for all who are impacted. Reduced IT maintenance and software license costs Reflexis runs on a single technology platform of database and web application server software and operating systems. It makes IT management tasks, such as data backup and database tuning, more straightforward. IT specialists do not have to learn how to accomplish similar functions on various platforms. Also the ability of Reflexis to run on inexpensive open source software enabled the supermarket chain to stop paying for expensive annual license fees to its previous software vendors. Optimized scheduling for stores that better aligns labor to customer needs With Reflexis in place, the supermarket chain can now more easily forecast and schedule for sales-driving events. Examples of such events include holidays and days on which government subsidized funds such as Social Security were disbursed. The system also 13

16 forecasted customer traffic, consequent required store workloads, and factored in inflation rates to maximize schedule accuracy and control labor costs. These functions enabled the company to accurately match employee resources with customer service needs. Improved execution of promotions and other sales generating projects Like all supermarket chains, the company works with its suppliers to plan promotions, product launches, and other projects to increase sales. With Reflexis Task Manager, the retail chain can streamline headquarters-to-stores communication and consistently execute its corporate plans throughout the chain. Increased efficiency and accuracy of time and attendance or payroll processing Under the old systems, administrators spent a lot of time per store manually entering in time and attendance data such as employee punches and pay rates. This information then had to be reviewed for timekeeping, payroll, schedule violations, and simple mathematical errors. Reflexis provides the retail chain with a system that automatically calculates employee pay and uploads it to the company s Human Resources application. Furthermore, in stores, employee time punches are automatically compared against their schedule for the real-time prevention and alerting of work and other violations. Reduced time theft and labor costs Under the old system, employee punches and schedules had to be compared manually. With Reflexis, if a store employee punches in when not scheduled, the system immediately generates a violation alert and flags it, reducing employee time theft and unauthorized labor costs. With Reflexis, the retail chain has now moved from its old and inefficient time and attendance, labor scheduling, and corporate-to-store communication systems, some of which were so obsolete that they were no longer used. It moved to a unified platform that is embraced throughout the company, saves money, increases efficiency, and most importantly, contributes to a better customer experience. Summary Reflexis has extensive experience in helping retailers achieve execution excellence throughout their organization, including corporate, regional management, and in their stores. The web-based workforce management solutions from Reflexis help retailers define all activities that are required in the workplace and accurately forecast the workload demand. They also help to rapidly schedule the right tasks with the right people at the right place and right time, in addition to providing real-time visibility to execution status in all locations. The Reflexis Retail Execution Platform provides a family of solutions for retailers to drive flawless execution of their merchandising planning, store operations, and vendor operations. The platform is made up of three suites that are enhanced by Reflexis Adaptive Real-Time Execution components and mobility solutions: Labor Operations Suite, which includes Labor Budgeting, Forecasting, Scheduling, Employee Self Service, and Time and Attendance Store Execution Suite, which includes Reflexis Task Manager, StoreWalk, and KPI Activator Corporate Operations Suite, which includes Reflexis Vendor Performance Manager, Corporate Process Manager, and Workload Optimizer 14 Workforce Management and Adaptive Execution for Midsize and Large Retailers

17 Reflexis Adaptive Real-Time Execution components These components integrate with traffic intelligence, video monitoring, supply chain, RFID, and social media analytics to provide real-time alerts and best practice actions to provide a higher quality of customer engagement. Mobility solutions These solutions enable managers to access Workforce Manager, Time and Attendance, Task Manager, StoreWalk, KPI Activator, and real-time alerts on handheld devices, including smartphones, tablet computers, and more. Reflexis develops its solutions from the ground up so that they can fully integrate with each other. You can implement all of the suites in the Reflexis platform or start by addressing a certain area, such as Store Execution, and implement additional solutions later. With the Reflexis Retail Execution Platform, a retailer can coordinate cross-functional planning, ensure consistent execution, and respond proactively to key metrics by using best practices. For more information and contacts For more information, see the following websites Reflexis Reflexis contact information Reflexis Partnership with IBM IBM PureApplication System IBM PureFlex System IBM PureSystems IBM Retail Industry Framework The team who wrote this guide This guide was produced by Reflexis Systems, Inc. working with the International Technical Support Organization (ITSO). David L. Andrews is the Director of Marketing Communications for Reflexis Systems, Inc. He has 25 years of experience in writing and publishing in the IT, supply chain, and retail industries. He has written for 80 Micro and BYTE Magazine, in addition to ID Systems, Supply Chain Systems, and the ERI Journal, which are no longer in publication. He has extensive experience in analyst relations, public relations, marketing, and publishing. David holds a bachelor degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and also attended the University of New Hampshire. 15

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