Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Hitachi Consulting UK Helps Boden Assess Global Product Lifecycle Management Solutions to Support Strategic Growth

Leading UK retailer, Boden, has engaged Hitachi Consulting UK to work with its senior commercial directors to facilitate a review of the company’s product lifecycle processes to support market expansion, product diversity and global growth. The process review examines the impact on the business and its strategic direction, including garment design, sourcing, product development, and critical path tracking.

Boden continues to buck the economic trend, experiencing substantial growth in several markets. As a result of its on-going growth, the company needed to review its current product lifecycle management processes to ensure global business alignment across both its business strategy and technology processes. Boden required an assessment of alternative solutions capable of providing more efficient and automated processes for product development and analysis, such as insight into buying patterns, to further support the future growth of the business and product diversity into the marketplace.

Matthew Dalton, Director of IT, Boden, said, “As a company we’ve seen huge organic growth and product expansion in all markets over the past few years. As a retail clothing business we are focused on product. We pride ourselves on attention to detail and high quality products, and from a business point of view, wanted to identify what we could be doing in terms of efficiency and IT process improvements, all of which filter through to all aspects of the lifecycle of our products. We have our own in-house product master file database, but are mainly governed by manual processes. The ability to free up resources and automate specific processes would provide us with a platform to support the business both today and in the future.”

Hitachi Consulting UK led a number of stakeholder interviews and workshops, and a consensus of current issues and technical objectives were agreed. Hitachi Consulting UK facilitated a review of three market leading product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions which address the future PLM scope, helping to bring to life the modern systemic capabilities, and enabling the Boden team to understand how these capabilities could support strategic direction. Following this review, the scope of PLM was extended to include merchandise and assortment planning.

“Hitachi Consulting UK has helped us cut through the potential misconceptions of the technology and understand how specific solutions could work for us on a pragmatic level, without a lot of consultancy waffle,” commented Matthew Dalton. “PLM will enable us to improve efficiency, and also lend itself to the design, buying and merchandising teams, for example. Hitachi Consulting UK has helped us to identify best practice methodologies but also help cut through the hype and pinpoint what could work for us in terms of improvements verses what we wouldn’t change and what currently works. We were impressed with Hitachi Consulting’s UK Consulting team and their deep understanding of the retail sector. We will be looking at PLM implementation into 2012.”

Hitachi Consulting UK will be presenting findings from its Retail Vision Report: 20 Technology Challenges from 20 Leading Retailers at the National Retail Federation Annual Convention and Expo on 16 January 2012 at 3:00pm as part of the Microsoft Business Intelligence Showcase (Booth No. 836).

www.hitachiconsulting.co.uk/retail-Ip.cfm

About Hitachi Consulting Corporation

Hitachi Consulting is the global business and IT consulting company of Hitachi Ltd. with operations throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The company is a recognized leader in delivering proven business and IT strategies and technology solutions to Global 2000 companies across many industries. With a balanced view of strategy, people, process and technology, we work with companies to understand their unique business needs, and to develop and implement practical business strategies and technology solutions. From business strategy development through application maintenance and deployment, our consultants are committed to helping clients quickly realize measurable business value and achieve sustainable return on investment (ROI). Hitachi Consulting's client base includes 25 percent of the Global 100 as well as many leading mid-market companies. We offer a client-focused, collaborative approach and transfer knowledge throughout each engagement. For more information, visit www.hitachiconsulting.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 360,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2010 (ended March 31, 2011) consolidated revenues totalled 9,315 billion yen ($112.2 billion). Hitachi will focus more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes information and telecommunication systems, power systems, environmental, industrial and transportation systems, and social and urban systems, as well as the sophisticated materials and key devices that support them. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at www.hitachi.com.

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