Fujitsu Services

Fujitsu appoints Mark Dorgan as European retail partner

Dr Mark Dorgan, a leading commentator on and advisor to the retail sector, has been appointed as European retail partner at Fujitsu Services, one of Europe's leading IT services companies.

London, 7th December 2004 — Dr Mark Dorgan, a leading commentator on and advisor to the retail sector, has been appointed as European retail partner at Fujitsu Services, one of Europe's leading IT services companies. In his new role, Mark will develop and drive the retail strategy and support retail leaders across Europe in transforming their businesses, while ensuring that Fujitsu remains focused on providing value-added technology services targeted at the specific needs of retailers.

Dr Dorgan has successfully led global transformation programmes and delivered results for high profile companies in a number of regions throughout the world via strategy, business process and solution implementation and is known for his rigorous approach and delivery of benefits.

Fujitsu's retail offering focuses on key areas such as exploiting multi-channel retailing, managing in-store systems, integrating supply chains and optimising IT infrastructure and boasts an enviable client portfolio including, Marks and Spencer, Dixons and Staples.

Mark is available to comment on a whole host of retail issues and the following is an outline of what he believes are some of the most important challenges facing retailers over the next five years:

• Consumer trends continue to focus more on convenience and choice
• Good retail strategy focuses on consumer needs and enabling technology
• The supply chain has evolved fast
• The future focus is on the store and commercial systems
• Introducing new IT economics for retailers

1) Consumer trends continue to focus more on convenience and choice
Consumers are sophisticated selectors of products and services and are prepared to go where the quality and price meet their needs. This means that retailers now, and in the future, must either offer a full range of products in their multi-channel shopping environment - good quality basics at low price, better quality goods at middle prices and high quality luxuries at premium prices - or dominate one of these niches in the most accessible way.
Convenience and choice remain the growing needs of consumers.

2) Good retail strategy focuses on consumer needs and enabling technology
From the evolving consumer profile, it is clear that successful retailers must pay increased attention to their strategy in respect of range, price and location (actual and virtual), on the one hand, and the technologies that help them to create convenience and ubiquity at low cost, on the other.
Successful retailers have shown that it is possible to create strong growth by relentlessly improving the range of products and services that consumers demand, even though their home markets are not growing in absolute terms. The other half of the formula for these retailers has been the disciplined pursuit of those innovations that allowed expansion to take place at acceptable levels of cost, thereby ensuring a price advantage in their competitive markets.

3) The supply chain has evolved fast
The innovations of the last five years have centred on the supply chain. Global sourcing has become commonplace, with e-auctions a common feature. Logistics and logistics tracking have become much more sophisticated.
Innovations in warehouse and distribution centre use have changed the way retailers think about the supply chain, from a retailer-centric to a network-centric view, with partners playing an increasing role. There are still challenges, not least of which how to make supply information and control real-time, to achieve maximum product availability.
There are also still more technology-supported supply chain innovations to come. RFID promises to improve supply chain efficiencies over the next ten to 15 years. Responsive product tracking and control systems will become more central to managing not just the supply chain, but the total value chain.

4) The future focus is on the store and commercial systems
The real trend now is towards refocusing on the heart of the retail operation, the shopping experience itself. New point of sale technology will put sophisticated interaction at the fingertips of store staff and customers, putting a much more flexible tool in the hands of the retailers.
Integration with other in-store technology such as hand-held POS, trolleys equipped with digital devices, kiosks for items like phone top-up and shelf-edge labels will create a more seamless shopping experience. Self-checkout will grow, based on availability and the enthusiastic response from shoppers in trials to date. In-store digital television will evolve from boring display spaces to controllable promotions portals. All of these are increasingly operating in a 'thin' environment (little hardware in the store), with remote control from a central system.
What will be different about tomorrow's shopping environment is that all of these technologies will be integrated with each other across channels - with the systems used to drive availability.
Not surprisingly, the focus will also be on integrating more closely store and commercial information and then the total value chain. Much of this technology is here already. The 'real' retail leaders will begin to invest in these systems and approaches now, so that they are ahead of the competition in winning consumer share for the future.

5) Introducing new IT economics for retailers
Retailers looking at the costs of replacing their ageing POS and commercial systems and implementing the new technology will look for new ways of managing cost. They are moving towards outsourcing entire systems (hardware, software and services) as a managed service package.
Beyond that they will move to 'pay-as-you-go' technology, where they hire the POS and other services as part of a flexible service package from network management partners. This will allow retailers to vary their network use and technology investment according to need, rather than making infrequent, but large one-off investments in technology. As a result, the economics of retail operations will change forever and fuel a new era in retail performance management. We are entering another exciting era of dynamic change in the retail environment.

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About Fujitsu Services

Fujitsu Services is one of the leading IT services companies in Europe , Middle East and Africa . It has an annual turnover of £1.74 billion, (€2.58 billion) employs 14,500 people and operates in over 20 countries. It designs, builds and operates IT systems and services for customers in the financial services, telecom, retail, utilities and government markets. Its core strength is the delivery of IT infrastructure management and outsourcing across desktop, networking and data centre environments, together with a full range of related services, from consulting through integration and deployment. Headquartered in London, Fujitsu Services is the European-centred IT services arm of the Fujitsu Group. The Fujitsu Group is a US$45 billion (€37 billion) leader in customer-focused IT systems and services for the global marketplace.
For more information, please see: uk.fujitsu.com

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