This has been an exciting first half of the year with another IBM award announced at last week’s IBM Amplify Event. This award recognizes Perficient for groundbreaking solutions leveraging the IBM Commerce portfolio to help clients improve business operations, increase sales revenue, reduce cost of services, and help deliver the best customer experiences. It was a great honor especially with many of our clients attending and speaking at the event it was fascinating to hear their journey and how we have been and continue to be a part of it.
One of the groundbreaking solutions we were awarded on was with a leading US retail home improvement and agricultural company who with Sterling OMS and our expertise helped eliminate bottlenecks. Before, they had no inbound shipment visibility so the company often experienced bottlenecks at its distribution centers. Now the company manages container flow and knows exactly where all shipments are at any given point in time and have been able to reduce pickup lead time to one day. This has translated into less safety stock in the system and a huge net transportation savings.
In addition to the success above, three of our clients were selected to share their stories at Amplify. Some highlights include:
- Varsity Spirit Fashion – Did you know Varsity Spirit Fashion clothes over 1 million athletes? That’s a lot of uniforms and accessories all of which were being sold via a cumbersome paper catalog. The reps had no tools to create customized visuals of proposed uniforms, except for paper based, ad hoc tools. Working with our technology experts and a solution built on IBM Commerce, Varsity developed a Design Studio that the sales team could use to really present a customized visual for the customer. With a 100% adoption rate, and extremely happy sellers – Varsity transformed their business. Click here to read more about the session from one of our experts, Mark Polly
- Next stop, Carhartt, a 126 year old work wear company. They are known for their rugged, tough, high quality wear, (one audience member had a hand-me-down jacket over 40 years old). While the clothing line was indestructible, Carhartt was strategically focusing its business initiatives towards a more aggressive eCommerce and social analytics model to “provide a best in-class personalized online experience for hard working consumers to learn about and buy Carhartt.” The speaker showed Carhartt’s hip new site, cool new videos, including their very own social media hashtag (#carhartt). They have come a long way…READ MORE HERE
- And finally, we joined Urban Outfitters who continue to deliver superior customer experiences with IBM Sterling Commerce. Urban selected Perficient to manage the complex multiphase project to implement the Sterling DOM, COM and SOM solutions to fulfill the long-term vision of Urban Outfitters. The team rationalized multiple business processes across brands and channels to create unified processes with flexibility, seamless integration across channels, and a high level of visibility and control across brands. Some of the many benefits they have seen:
- Consistent seamless customer service (inventory visibility, returns etc.)
- Support for the consolidation of DtoC and retail merchandising functions in the brands
- Increased revenue by reducing lost/missed sales due to stock outs via an enterprise-wide view of inventory to fulfill demand
- Purchase on-line and pick up in the store
- Browse on-line and hold in store
- Customer can have items shipped to the store free of charge to pick up
- Improved drop ship capabilities; vendor-managed inventory and fulfillment
- Improved home delivery capabilities with customer-managed scheduling
Dr. Jonah Berger, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, talked at Amplify about the importance of using triggers to keep your company at top of mind with customers and how it’s the secret to generating good word of mouth. “Any company-generated communications, they don’t believe it as much as they trust their friends,” Berger says. This award is a great “trigger” for Perficient. Our clients successes being shared is the best word of mouth we could hope for, and being rewarded for it is the icing on the cake. IBM knows we get it – our customers come first and we are partners in their continuous journey to stay ahead of the competition and continuously deliver the best client experience in this ever changing digital world.
