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Managing labor remains one of a retail company's biggest challenges — and most untapped opportunities. JDA Software's Scott Welty talks about workforce management trends with Chain Store Age.

What are some common mistakes retailers make when it comes to managing labor?

Edwin Watts Golf has grown significantly during the past several years, expanding its store portfolio and direct mail and Internet businesses as well. With growth came an increased complexity that taxed the capabilities of its aging legacy systems, which did not provide visibility across channels and among stores. The retailer decided it was time to invest in a new solution due to the age and fragmentation of its existing systems.

Orlando, Fla. -- Workforce management solution-provider Empower Software Solutions said Monday that BJ’s Wholesale Club has launched the rollout of EmpowerWFM, the company’s workforce management solution, across BJ’s 198 locations in 15 states. 

The decision to rollout to all clubs follows a successful pilot of the solution.
 

As convenience store operator Wawa expanded, it faced a logistics challenge: The company was adding more new stores, and its manually operated chilled warehouse had run out of room. Its production had outpaced its storage capacity, and the chain’s products were now being produced, staged on the warehouse floor and quickly shipped to make room for milk, teas and juices that were newly coming off the line. The distribution center’s storage space had surpassed maximum capacity.

Atlanta -- RedPrairie Corp., a global supply chain and retail technology provider, announced that Adidas has gone live with RedPrairie workforce management (WFM) at its Singapore retail locations. Adidas will leverage RedPrairie WFM to increase employee productivity and optimize scheduling to help Adidas deliver optimal customer service to Singapore consumers.
 

By Ed Weiser, motorolasolutions.com/mobilePOS

On a recent trip to an electronics store, I found myself contemplating the art of the sale – or more accurately, the digital technology that really drives the sale. While browsing, I overheard a woman discussing the features and benefits of several digital cameras with a sales associate. The exchange seemed pleasant enough and the associate helped her select a camera that best fit her needs.

New York -- Saks Inc. has selected Oracle's retail merchandising, planning and optimization applications and the Oracle e-business suite 12.1 to help integrate business operations and improve margins and profitability across all channels.

The implementation is part of a business-wide initiative by Saks to establish a modern, flexible and scalable IT platform that will provide finance, human resources, merchandising, commerce and store operations teams with real-time, mobile access to sales, inventory and performance data they require.

Atlanta -- Arby’s Restaurant Group said Friday that it has selected service provider BIAS Corp., based in Atlanta, to implement all of the needed Oracle applications and infrastructure. BIAS will serve as Arby’s long-term partner to provide EBS application managed services and support.

Product diversification combined with major growth always translates into increased supply chain complexity. Such was the case for online specialty retailer Hayneedle, which started business in 2002 as Hammocks.com with a single-niche category site. Flash forward seven years, and the company had expanded its offerings to include more than 200 product categories. Given its growing business, an optimized distribution process became a top company priority. 


Duluth, Ga. -- A majority of U.S. consumers believe that self-service technologies such as self-checkout and kiosks improve the store experience, with almost half of younger shoppers preferring to use self-checkout in stores, according to a new survey by The NPD Group for NCR Corp.

Duluth, Ga. -- NCR Corp. will acquire Radiant Systems, a leading provider of multichannel point-of-sale and managed hosted service solutions to the hospitality and specialty retail markets, through a cash tender offer of $28.00 per Radiant Systems share. The equity purchase price of $1.2 billion has been approved by the boards of directors of each company.

It is expected the transaction will close during third quarter 2011, subject to regulatory approval.

Boston -- Retailers identified mobile POS technologies as a quickly emerging trend, with more than half planning to launch mobile solutions within the next two years, according to Boston Retail Partner’s 12th Annual POS Survey.