Dobbies boost business visibility with K3
London, 10th February 2006 - UK garden centre retailer, Dobbies, is analysing the performance of its business using OLAP from K3 Landsteinar, a leading provider of IT solutions to mid-tier retailers, manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers.
Dobbies had previously implemented Navision-based retail management systems from K3 Landsteinar, and wanted to start taking advantage of the data. Sharon Brown, Dobbies’ FD, said, “We are now able to look at sales by store, time period, item and range, enabling us to make better decisions about merchandising, ranging and replenishment for 60,000 SKUs a year across our growing range of formats include everything from plants and fish to food!
Brown adds that the main benefit of the new system is visibility. “We know what profit and margin we are making on a line by line basis. We can also identify sales trends and introduce discounting on slow-moving lines.”
Dobbies consulted a variety of sources including magazines and trade shows in its search for new systems. Brown added, “This is a very open industry and we do talk amongst ourselves.” In the end, the company had a shortlist of four companies and chose K3. Brown explains, “The key factor that we liked was the flexibility that the system offered.”
About Dobbies
Developing opportunities has been a virtue with Dobbies for over 136 years. From an old established business founded by James Dobbie in 1865, to a young public company embarking on an exciting stage of its development and becoming one of the leading Garden Centre Groups in the United Kingdom.
Since floating on the AIM market in 1997 Dobbies has grown the number of garden centre stores it operates from 9 to 18. The Company concentrates on sites of over 8 acres, which allows flexibility to provide a good mix of retail space -including a wide range of indoor and outdoor plants, an outdoor living range such as garden furniture and barbeques, a gift range - along with other visitor attractions and restaurant offerings.
About K3 Landsteinar
K3 Landsteinar is the largest Microsoft Dynamics partner in the UK and Ireland delivering the powerful Navision Retail Solution. A Microsoft Certified Gold partner and member of Microsoft’s Inner Circle the company services over 100 clients worldwide. K3 Landsteinar is part of the K3 Business Technology Group plc.
K3 Business Technology Group is a global leader in providing next-generation enterprise software for businesses in the Retail, Manufacturing and Distribution sectors. Over the past 25 years, K3 has gained a wealth of experience from implementing Enterprise Resource Planning and business software solutions across over 3000 sites in over 30 countries. K3 is recognised as a safe, innovative and reliable provider of world-class solutions built around standard Microsoft technologies, backed by world-class service.
All K3’s implementations employ a personalised and sometimes customised approach depending on size, timescales and key business issues.