Leading Retail Group Edcon Goes Live with Eqos Global Sourcing
- Solution to Support Growth Objectives and Fast Fashion Initiatives for South Africa's Largest Apparel, Footwear and Textiles Retailer -
London, UK and Burlington, Mass, US- 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, Parto and JetMart) in nearly 1,000 stores across Africa; annual sales top more than $2.3 billion.
"We are pleased to announce the rollout 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."
The joint Eqos and Accenture project team worked closely with the Edcon business to design and configure the end-to-end solution. 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 implementation 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.
The implementation team has integrated the sourcing application with various Edcon systems and external logistics service providers, thus providing for a more seamless sourcing process. "Eqos' sourcing software expertise, combined with Accenture's extensive retail and supply chain expertise and deep understanding of Edcon's business and systems has enabled the joint team to develop a world-class integrated end-to-end sourcing solution, " said Adrian Bertschinger, Senior Executive responsible for Accenture's OUtsourcing and Consulting work at Edcon.
Jane Biddle, Eqos chief marketing officer, said, "As today's leading retailers such as Edcon look 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
Edcon Pty (Ltd) (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
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 US, 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
For further information, please contact:
Dayna Guzik , DPR Group Inc, USA
Tel: +1 919 678 9200
E-mail: dguzik@dprgroup.com
Paul van de Braak , Effective Communications, Europe
Tel: +31 299 656404
E-mail: effective-communications@planet.nl
