System Enhancements Fulfill Store Number Expansion and Retail Growth Plans

The client is a $3+ billion wholesaler and retailer of children’s apparel and accessories, operating over 800 retail stores globally and distributing products online as well as through wholesale and exclusive branded retail partnerships. The retailer originally allocated three digits within its technology systems to identify store locations (i.e., store numbers 1-999). However, the company’s recent retail store growth and plans necessitated a four-digit numbering schematic (i.e., store numbers 1000-9999). Along with store number expansion, the general ledger (GL) accounts tied to the store numbers required a revised designation to track new stores for accounting purposes.

The client’s strategic plan for the next fiscal year included aggressive expansion of retail stores in the U.S. and international markets. To avoid jeopardizing these goals, the retailer needed to remediate its current technology limitations to support store number expansion.

The Parker Avery Group worked with the retailer as both project manager and business analyst to ensure all finance, human resources, and supply chain systems would support the store number expansion.

Key activities for the project included the following:

• Identified and assessed all systems that required enhancements or configuration changes to handle four-digit stores, as well as the accompanying GL accounts
• Coordinated with software vendors to deliver changes within specified budgets and timelines
• Ensured quality assurance testing was conducted and completed prior to implementation so all business functions and processes would operate as required
• Oversaw implementation activities for all systems in which enhancements were developed