Contract delivers Merret supply chain solution and outsourced helpdesk to lingerie and swimwear wholesaler

Contract delivers Merret supply chain solution and outsourced helpdesk to lingerie and swimwear wholesaler

Crew2000, a subsidiary company of Yorkshire-based Haddow Holdings, and a supplier of ‘intimate apparel’ to High Street retailers, has awarded a contract to Retail Assist for the supply of its Merret enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and provision of an outsourced helpdesk service. The new software solution and its associated services have recently gone live.

Tristan Haddow, managing director of Haddow Holdings, explained: “With our Crew2000 business primarily focused on wholesale supply, we wanted to facilitate direct trading with one of our most important clients, a leading health and beauty retailer. To achieve a more efficient way of supplying them with our swimwear, we needed a supply chain solution to provide MMS [merchandise management system] and WMS [warehouse management system] functionality. Typical functions being price and product set-up, intake, initial allocation, pick by store, despatch to store, stock adjustments and replenishment.”

Standard systems, tailored to needs

Crew2000 has taken a version of Merret branded as ‘out of the box,’ but only switched on the initial functionality that they required at day one. Retail Assist’s product director, Nigel Illingworth, explained: “This is an integrated merchandising and warehousing ERP system, pre-configured to meet the needs of medium-size and multichannel retailers and allowing for fast deployment. It is a real-time, multi-outlet, multichannel solution, covering all areas of stock control, retail supply and business intelligence. It has multi-currency and multi-country capabilities for international retail and is fully scalable.”

In terms of services, Retail Assist has facilitated the setup of a virtual private network (VPN) communications solution with Crew2000 and, as for support, Retail Assist will provide Crew2000 staff with a helpdesk and problem-solving service for the Merret application; interfaces to and from external parties and systems such as Crew2000’s incumbent wholesale system, STYLEman, including those interfaces which Retail Assist has developed; and hardware components housed in the Retail Assist data dentre in Northampton.

This level of support will work alongside the IT operations already in place in Haddow’s Bradford headquarters. The first point of contact for Crew2000 staff will be the Retail Assist helpdesk, who will manage all calls through to completion.