Ask the owners of Lakeland about the secret to their business success and they will tell you that there are no secrets.
Dig a little deeper and you notice that business is geared to please their customers at every touchpoint. Today, fifty years on from the company's founding, they now have 1500 employees, generate thousands of orders per day, and have a portfolio of over 4000 product lines. They are a major ecommerce and high street retailer of quality kitchenware and home solutions, supplying customers in the UK and overseas.
12 years ago Lakeland reached a point in its development where their core systems needed upgrading. They wanted a best in class order management system solution that would integrate with established warehouse management, ecommerce, and POS systems to create an omnichannel retail ptatform and a seamless customer experience. By any measure, this was a complex and demanding project where both the opportunity and risk were considerable.
68 stores, website and catalogue business. 4,000 SKUs
15 key interfaces
1500 staff with millions of customers per annum
In a peak month there are one million+ store transactions
German call centre live in 2013
Lakeland's challenge has been to retain the values of a family business whilst providing an authoritative range of quality and innovative products to our customers through whichever channel they prefer to shop in. This means that we have had to ensure that each of our business processes helps exceed our customers' expectation. With OrderActive, MNP has delivered an order management system which continues to evolve with our need to support our customer service ethos in an increasingly complex and competitive omnichannel world - look after the customer and the business looks after itself.
At the top of Lakeland's list of requirements was a system which managed the entire sales order management cycle in real time and crucially linked together each sales channel. Lakeland required a flexible, intuitive system to enable all business users to access a complete range of customer information so as to have a more natural interaction with them.
The system also had to be very user friendly to ensure a smooth transition from it's legacy platform and, importantly, it had to become the central point of truth for all customer, supplier, stock, sales, purchasing, pricing and payment information. Importantly, this centralised approach enabled simpler, consistent and reliable business reporting from the same single data source.
Lakeland chose MNP's OrderActive as the central hub for its order management requirements. They also utilise to the full the features of supplier and purchase order management provided by MNP's Purchase Supply Management solution and their sophisticated customer segmentation engine which has delivered significantty improved marketing analysis and planning for catalogue and email campaigns.
This analysis further enhanced their already customer centric philosophy. The improved analysis using MNP's Data Analyser solution enables enhanced targeting and personalisation of their catalogues and email marketing to customers.
MNP has worked closely with Lakeland over the 15 year partnership to further enhance their omnichannel system solution with gift card functionality, multi-language and currency, marketplace integration, franchise partner solutions and integration to packaging and other automation.
Currently, whether by mail, website, marketplace or telephone, all customers are guaranteed rapid delivery of their order. Lakeland's 270,000 sq. ft. distribution centre is an organised, efficient operation in which a continuous flow of orders are automatically loaded for dispatch through a sophisticated conveyor system, sorters and automated packaging machines. Pick and pack confirmation routines coupled with other warehouse automation technology ensure significant error reduction in the order fulfilment process. Meanwhile, accurate inventory control, and real time data sharing of availability have provided significant improvements to distribution.
Customer demand for fast and accurate delivery for orders placed in any channel, including retail stores, means that the MNP systems have had to keep pace with significant order volume growth, store growth and a far more complex set of UK and international, channels to market. The usability and efficiency of system processes has been essential to the success of this expanding omnichannel international business.
If you would like to find out more or to hear how we can help you solve your problems please get in touch
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