2005 C.I.P.A. Winners

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TELUS Mobility

Retail Management System

TELUS Mobility offers wireless voice, data and Internet services to business and consumer clients via two state-of-the-art digital wireless networks: PCS and Mike. In 2000, the company acquired Clearnet Communications and QuébecTel Mobilité, transforming TELUS Mobility into a leading national service provider. The company boasts 4 million clients nationwide and more than 5,000 employees.

Challenge

TELUS sells wireless solutions from 120 corporately owned retail stores, with plans for significant expansion by 2007. But first, the organization needed to improve its in-store business procedures.

Mike Drennan, director, corporate stores operations, remembers five years ago when the company was called Clearnet and each of its seven stores depended on a DOS-based system that was little more than a glorified cash register.

"In those days, we expected our managers to order inventory, merchandise it and process returns," he remarks. "As a company, we had no clue what was in each store because the system in each was separate and disconnected. So, we actually had to rely on store managers to send a file back to head office every night to determine what each store's sales had been that day, what banking had transpired and whether the cash reconciled or not."

Without integration between the point-of-sale (POS) and the store's other internal system, SAP, the staff had to complete a sales transaction, then walk to the back and rekey it into the SAP system. With inexperienced or untrained staff, the possibility of inacurracies abounded. Even more problematic was head office's utter lack of information regarding the inventory levels within its stores. A powerful new retail management system would have to be developed.

"We basically had a blank slate," notes Drennan. "We asked ourselves, 'How do we design the ultimate retail experience for the client and the ultimate work environment for the store manager and store reps?' "

Objectives

TELUS issued an RFP to identify the solution. To be successful, the new Retail Management System would need to:

• Re-engineer and automate all store processes, using clearly defined workflows to ensure consistency in training and ease of use through an intuitive tool;
• Incorporate other existing business channel applications in the corporate store environment;
• Providing an exceptional client experience;
• Increase ease of use by providing a single-system access point for store staff;
• Include a POS framework capable of plugging in Web applications to integrate different payment options such as cash, credit or debit card. At the same time, enable centralized inventory, product and promotion management.

TELUS selected Qualicom Innovations Inc. to supply the retail management software and serve as the primary consultant in integrating it with SAP and other systems. The project budget was established at approximately $2 million, and TELUS adopted a project methodology called Systems Development Life Cycle. From initial concept to system roll-out took approximately three years.

Solution

The Retail Management System (RMS) has met all of the company's expectations for an ultimate solution. The RMS point-of-sale terminal is designed for self-guided functions with simple workflow screens. A single-transaction workflow can combine sales and returns. Input is from scanning product codes, serial numbers or receipts. Transactions can be suspended, resumed, voided or paid by a mix of different tender types.

The system also provides a wide variety of capabilities in product management, inventory management and reports and analysis.

"From an operations perspective, it is nice to have control and real-time reporting of the business and know what's going on," comments Drennan. "From a sales perspective, it enables your store staff to go out and do what you hired them to do: sell phones, without having to spend time on a lot of operational activities."

The system seems to be exerting a positive effect on both customer sales and staff. Drennan says employee churn is significantly down and annual sales growth in the stores is in double digits, compared with an industry average of three per cent. Additionally, the stores were able to support customer-contract activations credits totalling $15 million in 2004 using the RMS.

Innovative Use of Technology

The RMS combines thin-client Internet technology with thick-client Java technology to deliver state-of-the-art functions covering: cash, inventory, activations, client care, loyalty retention and product care. It enables central control and visibility of information but also permits operational independence in the case of connectivity outages. It can operate offline without a connection to the central server.

Many retail management systems require extensive modifications to adapt to new requirements. With a combination of Java and Web technologies, this innovative architecture permits any application to interface with it and become part of the RMS solution. When changes are required to the system based on business needs, software development is minimal and deployment is rapid.

A 2005 CIPA Winner!

For its exceptional application of information technology to solve real-world business problems, TELUS Mobility has been awarded a 2005 CIPA Silver Award of Excellence in the Efficiency and Operational Improvements, For Profit category.

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