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Uniqlo

CIBER completed the implementation at UNIQLO within six months

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Fast Retailing UK (FRUK) is the UK division of Fast Retailing Co. which trades on the high street as UNIQLO, and has established itself over the last 15 years as a hugely successful clothing retailer in Japan. UNIQLO’s success has been based on selling modern clothing styles at extremely competitive prices, by sourcing supply in China and the Far East.

Fast Retailing is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and has been one of the best performing Japanese retailers with over 500 stores across Japan. The company recorded a turnover of £2.4 billion and net profit of £341 million from September till August 2001 and has over 20,000 employees.

UNIQLO is something of a phenomenon in Japan. Since opening its first store in Hiroshima in 1984 it has grown to become the country's leading clothing retailer, offering functional and contemporary clothing for men, women and children at accessible prices. The UK was its first foray outside Japan.

The Problem

As UNIQLO continued to grow domestically, it saw the value of expanding into new markets. The UK was one of the first foreign markets where UNIQLO sought to establish itself, with a similar selling proposition to that which had proved successful in Japan.

FRUK was set up late in 2000 for this purpose, with plans to begin trading after nine months and to open a total of 5 stores by the end of the following year.

In order to support the expansion and new business, a systems infrastructure had to be created that could handle the complexity of the operation while allowing for future growth. It was also critical that the infrastructure be implemented within the tight timescales the company had decided upon.

The systems UNIQLO had used in Japan were mainly home grown, and were therefore not very suited to the UK operation. FRUK chose to adopt a package approach in order to achieve implementation of a working set of systems as rapidly and cost effectively as possible.

The Solution

At an early stage in the UK planning process, SAP Retail was selected by Fast Retailing as the ideal platform to fuel rapid growth in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.

Rather than the usual growth pattern of starting with a small system and building or replacing as the business develops, UNIQLO had the vision and resources to invest in a full-scale solution from the start. "We've actually begun with a system suited to a much larger company," explains Simon Thomas, IT & Logistics Director for UNIQLO, "But it's a system that we know will support our end growth target and beyond."

The SAP Retail system will also enable strategic decision making to take place by integrating financial and business performance information with management processes. While it is rare to have this scale of SAP implementation in a fledgling business, UNIQLO has invested in its business systems ahead of future growth.

The Choice

Simon Thomas, IT & Logistics Director for UNIQLO, said, “We chose CIBER because they understand the retail sector and the every day issues we face in running our business. They could provide practical advice in creating systems efficiencies and most importantly for us they are adept at fast implementations.”

Roy Tomlinson, CIBER Managing Director, added, “CIBER specialises in the retail sector, so with this implementation we were able to bring our experience from working with retailers such as French Connection, B&Q, Kwiksave and The Big Food Group to the fore. We have again demonstrated that rapid implementations and ROI are now an everyday occurrence.”

The Benefits

CIBER completed the implementation at UNIQLO within six months, at which point the company was already beginning to see benefits. SAP Financials and HR were among the first elements to be utilised.

Thomas says, “Normally when you open a store you have to phone up to find out what they've sold. On the first day we had a full breakdown of sales and total visibility of stock - which is particularly vital to us.”

The company is now focusing on additional areas to make full use of SAP Retail functionality, and in particular Real Estate and Recruitment as their nation-wide chain continues to grow. “SAP Retail gives you everything,” says Thomas. “It's up to you how you use it.”

The UK is vital to UNIQLO as the launch-pad for a major ongoing expansion programme into other markets. And with the current rate of success, UNIQLO and SAP Retail will be setting the trends for years to come.

About CIBER UK

CIBER is a leading SAP consultancy providing world-wide support for a range of high profile clients in the retail sector. We have maintained our reputation as the world's leading SAP Retail implementation partner ever since being the first partner to implement SAP Retail when it was launched in 1996.

CIBER ’s success in the UK has been built on the retail industry’s main priority today: integration of systems, data and processes to provide a seamless retail management and customer experience across multiple channels. Our customers include numerous high profile brand names such as The Big Food Group, B&Q, Direct Wines, Dunelm Mill, French Connection, Goldsmiths, and Halfords.

CIBER is part of CIBER, Inc. (NYSE: CBR), a leading international systems integration consultancy providing superior value-priced services to both private and government sector clients. CIBER’s global delivery services are offered on a project or strategic staffing basis, in both custom and enterprise resource planning (ERP) package environments, and across all technology platforms, operating systems and infrastructures. CIBER serves client businesses from over 60 U.S. offices, 20 European offices and four offices in Asia, operates in 18 countries with 8,500 employees, and has an annual revenue of more than approximately $1.2 billion million. CIBER is included in the Russell 2000 Index and the S&P Small Cap 600 Index.