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Cinderella
Cinderella - Keeping abreast with the changing fashion taste of the Filipino
Fifty-four years. That is how long the Cinderella business has been in existence. The company is one of the top clothing retailers in the Philippines, a true proof of the Filipino entrepreneurial spirit and a successful story of vertical business integration strategy.
Humble beginnings
Over five decades ago, a little girl began to attract attention because of her fine wardrobe. It all began after the Second World War with a mother’s passion for dressing up her little princess. Without realizing what she was slowly building, Florencia Cuanzon-Coronel, with her husband Eduardo Coronel, started the country’s premier fashion specialty store – Cinderella.
The first showroom-cum-store that fronted the sprawling family compound in Caloocan, a suburb in Manila, is long gone. In its stead are more than 50 stores in the most prestigious locations all over the metropolis. The company’s founding father, Eduardo Coronel, has spurred his wife and children towards expansion. The fledgling operation began with only four seamstresses.
In 1948, Cinderella Dresses, Inc. was established with children’s clothes as its main line. It later pushed deeper into the fashion scene, offering apparel not just for children but for men and ladies as well. In time, its marketing arm, Cinderella Marketing Corporation, was established.
Today, with almost 60 stores and affiliate stores nationwide, Cinderella has played and continues to play a major role in the country’s fashion industry. It employs over 2,000 highly skilled workers who produce apparel for both domestic and foreign consumption. It has also maintained its positioned as the country’s arbiter of style, continuously responding to and setting local fashion trends.
Cinderella’s company logo and icon – the red “c” – is recognized everywhere. Interestingly enough, the ‘c” could very well stand for the outstanding “creativity” that Cinderella consistently brings to all its areas of operation - from design, to marketing, to retailing, and to its genuine commitment to the community.
Ms. Grace Gustilo, MIS - Head, shared that the inspiration to use the name ‘Cinderella’ came when an amiga of Mrs. Florencia Cuanzon-Coronel uttered in reference to now President of the company, Mrs. Therese Coronel-Santos, “Your baby looks so wonderful in that dress. She looks like Cinderella.”
Cinderella’s challenge
Cinderella currently has more than 50 stores nationwide and has acquired the calmness in operating in a very dynamic world. Being a purveyor of the ever-changing fashion industry, Cinderella has always kept abreast with the discriminating and changing taste of the fashion-conscious Filipino.
Gustilo shared that one of the tools that the company uses to adapt in this fashion-driven business is the promise of information technology. Gustilo said, “ICT plays a critical role in Cinderella. It assures reliability and accuracy of data that represents sales-through in our stores and as the basis for merchandising. This is what we use to base our plans and budget for every season. This data is the heart and soul of not only Cinderella but anyone else whose business is in retailing.”
Due to the overwhelming significance of store data to Cinderella’s business, Gustilo’s group makes it a point to ensure its 100% accuracy. So when Cinderella invested on a new point-of-sale system to give the company better flexibility, improved speed, and better data mining, Gustilo wanted to totally eliminate manual intervention in transferring store data daily to the head office.
The old way of transferring data involved having a store personnel dial in to the server of the head office. If the lines were busy, the store employee had to dial again until successful. “This has disadvantages,” explained Gustilo. “For one, costs are incurred on both sides. The store will have to let someone stay indefinitely until the transfer is complete and data gets to the head office. I would have to have one of my staff stay behind to ensure that all data from the stores have been transferred. Both activities are really low-value activities. I’d rather have them go home and enjoy the warmth of their respective families than have them stay behind and wait.”
With this scenario, Gustilo tapped Fujitsu Philippines to resolve the situation and satisfy their operational needs.
Fujitsu Solution
After considering the facts, FPI recommended the use of a system management program called SystemWalker.
FPI software engineers studied the business process, wrote the necessary scripts, and loaded and tested the algorithm. After a few days, the solution was ready to be rolled out to the identified Cinderella stores.
The solution that Gustilo wanted is a totally unmanned process. She said, “After the store personnel has performed the End of Day process”, I want them to go home and let the system do the rest.”
This demanded an automatic dial-up, an automatic data transfer from the stores to the head-office, and an automatic upload of data from Head Office server to the store servers. All of these have been satisfied by SystemWalker.
Gustilo said, “The automation of data polling from the stores saves us a lot of legwork and curbs the risk associated with manual intervention that results to error. I am very satisfied with how FPI handled our needs.”
When asked to comment on how she sees the business relationship with FPI in the future, she said with a smile, “Fujitsu Philippines will definitely be a part of it. Right now, I’m considering FPI for data storage. I want FPI to help me get a vacation when everybody else is on one!”
