Duty Free Philippines taps Microsoft Dynamics AX to Provide a Richer Shopping Experience to OFWs and Their Families
It is true, one of the greatest joys of kids who grew up with OFW
parents or families coming from other countries for a visit is going to Duty Free
Philippines and wait for that time right after picking their parent/s up from
their airport. There’s nothing better than feasting your eyes on every treat
the mall offers, from the wide array of local and international chocolates,
perfume and apparel to furniture and power tools.
Duty Free Philippines has been a welcome facet of OFW life for more
than 30 years, helping families reward themselves for time spent working
abroad, away from their loved ones.
Duty Free Nationwide
As one of leading luxury retailers in the
Philippines, Duty Free Philippines wanted to provide a truly welcoming and more
rewarding experience to its customers, whether they’re in Manila or in Davao.
They needed to be more responsive and agile and offer a better shopping
experience. They decided to embark on
their digital transformation journey.
In order to do this, Duty Free Philippines
has tapped Microsoft Dynamics AX to improve its financial, merchandising and
front-end systems.
Duty Free Challenges
As one of the leading luxury retailers in
the country, Duty Free Philippines needed to upgrade their 10-year old
systems. According to Vico Angala, COO
for Duty Free Philippines, the system they’ve been using has been around for
more than 10 years. Angala said that it’s crucial they generate reports based
on POS, inventory management and merchandise on a timely basis.
“Our previous system wasn’t helping us
generate our reports within our desired time frame. It demands a lot of manual
labor and encoding,” Angala said. Their IT department has to double their
efforts to interface the data which causes unnecessary delays in providing the
necessary business insights for managers to act on.
Charles Merioles, CIO of Duty Free Philippines
echoed the same. “Essentially,
we’ve been lagging behind and we found that we need to upgrade our system.”
Merioles said that DFP’s financials,
merchandising and front-end applications are all different systems and their IT
department had a hard time integrating all of them. “All the systems we’re using now are showing
their age, like we don’t have barcode scanning for the warehouses. We would
like to automate our supply chain, store, financials. We needed progress with
automation,” Merioles said.
Duty Free Luxury Items for all their
branches
Duty Free Philippines looked at other ERP
systems but they discovered that Microsoft Dynamics AX is a better fit as it will provide them with
the end to end solution for their operations. Dynamics AX is an integrated,
adaptable business management solution that helps companies and key decision
makers make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics AX
works like and with familiar Microsoft software, automating and streamlining
business processes and connecting you with global customers, business partners,
and subsidiaries in a way that helps business success.
It offers Warehouse management wherein it
can automate warehouse processes to reduce operational costs. It has modern POS system tha allows customers
to engage with rich clienteling, real-time inventory lookup, and back-office
capabilities. On top of that, it can also provide Demand forecasting to improve
forecasting accuracy to boost product availability and minimize inventory
costs. Dynamics AX can also increase the consistency of your data across your
organization and deployments.
With Dynamics AX, Duty Free Philippines will
help them automate their supply chain, store, financials. What’s key to them is
the transparency of all their supply chain data. Merioles cited that they use
to go to the physical store just to check the inventory. With Dynamics AX in
place, anyone can see the inventory in their desktop and mobile device
immediately once it’s been delivered to their warehouse.
Another key area that’s going to improve is updating the prices on their POS. Back then, if they needed to do this, they’d have to do it by midnight. Everything needed to be processed before the store opens and they’d have to do it again move it to other internal systems. With Dynamics AX, Duty Free Philippines will be able to update their POS pricing in real time and it’ll be reflected on all their 18 operational branches. It will also be essential when they open their second biggest branch in Terminal 3 this November 2017.
Now with the new system, DFP believes that
there will be less error, with auditing. Whatever information that will be
computed there in the system, the information will be disseminated to the
proper departments.
OFWs can reward their families with Duty Free Philippines gifts
anywhere in the Philippines
While Duty Free Philippines’ digital
transformation journey is still underway, their COO is glad with the advantages
it’ll bring to their operations. “It’s a good supply-chain help to the
operations, It’s the integration of the three systems into one, and the
transparency to all your branches. Reporting is done real time. All of the
processes within the company will be covered by automation, and Dynamics will
be the tool to make that happen,” Angala added.
In the very near future, Duty Free Philippines
prime customers, the OFWs will able to enjoy great discounts and packages of
the best luxury items to give to their families whether they’re in Metro
Manila, Cebu or Davao.
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