ACADEMIA

Masters Home Improvement has implemented an extensive footprint of Oracle Retail Merchandising, Supply Chain and Stores applications in only 13 months to support its growing operations in Australia.

A joint venture between Australia’s largest retail group Woolworths and US home improvement chain Lowe’s, Masters brings a highly competitive new approach in home solutions to the market and has opened ten stores since launching in September 2011.

Masters is using the Oracle Retail applications to manage its core retail operations, providing a scalable foundation upon which it has launched the new business and is now supporting an aggressive store rollout strategy that includes 100 sites in the next five years.

Adopting a rapid multi-phased approach, Masters first implemented the full suite of Oracle Retail Merchandising applications and Oracle Retail Demand Forecasting to develop core merchandising and supply chain processes throughout the business.

This has enabled Masters to manage all vendor and item master data, and is supporting ranging, pricing, forecasting and replenishment processes between head office, the distribution center and stores as they open.

Implementation of Oracle Retail Stores application suite followed providing a single platform for store operations to centrally manage inventory, transactions and customer information, and deliver a superior customer experience in store.

Underpinning the Oracle Retail platform are Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) and Oracle Database 11g.

Oracle Retail was selected to support the Masters business because of its extensive retail functionality and scalability, integration capabilities with other Woolworths systems, and flexible implementation approach that would enable Masters to deliver the project within tight timelines.

Following investment in Oracle in February 2010, implementation of the core merchandising and supply chain applications went live within 13 months in April 2011, and Oracle Retail Stores applications went live in September 2011. Currently Masters has 10 large retail Home Improvement Stores open.

A further phase of implementation to provide additional supply chain and wholesale integration and e-commerce capabilities is underway.

The deployment was supported by Oracle Partner Network (OPN) members, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) managing the implementation of the store application suite plus the program’s technical infrastructure and integration, and Logic Information Systems, managing implementation of merchandise and supply chain elements of the project, alongside Oracle Retail Consulting and support services. Production support is being provided by TCS and Cognizant.