MUJI - Selection and implementation of head office systems

Background

In 1997 Muji, the Japanese lifestyle retailer had 5 stores in the UK and planned to expand both in the UK and Europe. The existing systems didn’t provide the level of information Muji required at both a strategic and detailed SKU level to evaluate performance and facilitate the growth of the business.

Project Summary

With the immediate need for improved management information and the rapid expansion plans it was decided, in conjunction with Muji, to adopt a two phase approach.

Phase 1 involved the development of a suite of management reports and spreadsheet interfaces to provide Muji with key merchandising information. At the same time business processes were re-engineered to eliminate manual keying and provide increased integrity of data and consistency of information.

Phase 2 involved the selection and implementation of new EPOS and head office systems for sales, EFT, merchandising, stock management, finance and warehousing. This included a detailed evaluation of the retail systems market, the selection of the Island Pacific merchandising system and Chameleon EPOS system and implementation consultancy to ensure that the benefits of the new systems were realised. The systems were integrated with the Japanese parent’s data warehouse to enable sales and product information to be shared globally.

Benefits

Phase 1 provided Muji with immediate access to improved information to facilitate decision making and reduced its fortnightly re-ordering process from 2 days to ½ a day.

Phase 2 provided Muji with world class integrated systems and has supported the expansion to France. It has improved stock availability, warehouse operations and replenishment processes.

Retail Answers facilitated Muji in growing from 5 UK stores in 1997 to 14 UK and 5 French stores in 2002.

“Retail Answers has assisted us in achieving our growth to date and provided us with the systems capability to take the business forward."
David Brice, Muji’s UK Operations Director