Leia Gives Customers More Choice With Microsoft Dynamics™ Retail Management System And Syscom Web Services

Published 7th July 2008

Founded in 1920, the Eveden Group are international market leaders in lingerie manufacture. With over 400 employees and offices world-wide, the award-winning group are constantly looking for areas of growth. As a natural progression to their core business, Eveden established sister company Adden Limited – the retail arm of the business. Under the trading name of Leia, Adden retail all the Eveden brands, including Fantasie, Fauve and Freya, as well as offering additional brands such as Lejaby, Pour Moi? and Spanx to compliment their range. “We offer feminine, fashionable and flattering lingerie in sizes from A up to a JJ cup, and swimwear up to HH,” says Cleo Andrews, Head of Retail at Leia. “Our back sizes range from 28’ to 52’, and we are continuously looking for opportunities to improve this offer in order to ensure customers can find lingerie that’s perfect for them, whatever their size.” As a result, Leia currently have four stores in Bluewater, Cardiff, York and Richmond and an e-commerce website, www.leialingerie.com. Leia now employ over 45 people in their organisation, giving them a strong presence in the lingerie retail market...

When looking for an IT system Leia wanted to ensure it enhanced the customer experience. “We wanted to have tight control over stock, know exactly what products our customers were demanding and be able to process transactions quickly so that we can serve our customers effectively and efficiently,” says Cleo. Eveden’s long standing relationship with Microsoft Gold Partner Syscom PLC made the specialist software supplier a natural choice for Leia. Established for over 30 years, Syscom specialise in providing software solutions to the clothing and textile market. “Syscom have been providing Eveden with effective software solutions for over 10 years so we automatically turned to them to install Microsoft Dynamics™ Retail Management System RMS across the four stores.”

Each of Leia’s stores has two tills which run Microsoft Dynamics™ Store Operations Point of Sale POS software to process transactions and returns, create sales quotes and reserve items. This allows staff to focus on keeping pace with customer demand and deliver the exceptional service Leia pride themselves on. Item changes, stock tracking and inventory management are all facilitated on an individual store level by Microsoft Dynamics™ Store Operations Manager. This is linked to Microsoft Dynamics RMS Headquarters software at Leia’s Desborough office via a VPN link. This enables the Headquarters SQL server to send product updates and item changes to the stores every hour, as well as receive updates on each store’s stock and sales performance. “This allows us to have centralised control of products and company-wide reporting,” says Cleo, “and gives us clear visibility of customer trends and buying habits.”

Following the success of the stores, and in response to customer feedback, Leia have gone on to launch their e-commerce website. “We want women to have a fun lingerie shopping experience and our vision for the online store was to create a clean, simple, fast and easy to use interface,” says Cleo. “It was also essential for effective customer service that the website integrated with Microsoft Dynamics RMS.” The website was created by MEDIAmaker. In order to provide the web store database with necessary information, such as item and quantity updates, Syscom developed specialist software to integrate the website into Leia’s Microsoft Dynamics RMS system. Syscom worked closely with Leia to ensure the website met key objectives; “Our aim was to ensure Leia’s customers received excellent service and to provide tight integration between the website and Microsoft Dynamics RMS,” says Graeme Winterburn, Software Manager for Syscom PLC.

Each time a customer places an order via the website the Microsoft Dynamics RMS database is updated with the order details and customer information via Syscom Web Services. The customer is automatically sent an email to let them know that their order has been received and a pick note is produced containing an order number which can be printed off at the York store. Leia’s stock levels are then updated via the tills system. A second email is automatically sent to let the customer know the item is on its way while a dispatch note is printed to be sent out with the item. Because the till system is synchronised with the Headquarters SQL server, all website orders can be included in Microsoft Dynamics RMS company-wide reporting of sales. The website is automatically updated with sales and goods-in regularly to keep the online stock information ‘real-time’.

Microsoft Dynamics RMS and Syscom Web Services have been an important element in allowing Leia to achieve key objectives; “Microsoft Dynamics RMS has helped us gain visibility into both in-store and online sales, enabled us to maintain tight control over inventory and improved the speed of operating and order processing,” concludes Cleo. “Our company philosophy is to bring great fitting products to all women and this technology has helped towards achieving this. We will be working closely with Syscom in future as the business continues to grow.”