This self-proclaimed, "totally sexy" retailer now has stores in more than twenty countries, including 350 owned stores and licensed branches, and 300 concessions in department stores. Company CEO and co-founder, Beat Grüring, explains: "TALLY WEiJL is a brand for girls and young women who feel comfortable in their own skin". The retailer keeps the brand fresh by reviewing its collections every month, maintaining competitive prices and supporting their customer’s party lifestyle aspirations through exciting marketing campaigns. 

Achieving a fast fashion international supply chain

TALLY WEiJL first opened stores in Central Europe (Germany, Switzerland and Austria), before expanding into Ireland, Italy and Eastern Europe (including Russia, Poland and the Ukraine). Headed up by Tally Elfassi-Weijl herself, the design team, composed of around fifty designers, is based in the Paris headquarters. The buying, IT, logistics and marketing teams are based in Basel, Switzerland. The company has its own manufacturing plant in Morocco and a 25,000m2 international warehouse located in Germany, which handles more than 18 million articles a year.

"The TALLY WEiJL brand relies on speed. From design to production, distribution, import and logistics, everything has to happen very rapidly, explains Alexis Bischoff, IT & Logistics Director. Our ideal turnaround time from product launch to store is 10 days." To support TALLY WEiJL’s strategy, based on rapid international growth and “fast fashion” retailing, it needed a robust supply chain. Only with the logistics and IT teams working side by side could this be achieved.

Today: an end-to-end software solution underpins the company’s daily operations

For the last twelve years, TALLY WEiJL’s success has been underpinned by retail management software solutions from VCSTIMELESS. Across TALLY WEiJL’s store network, the Colombus Retail store management solutions are operating in various languages and in accordance with local fiscal regulations. Colombus head office modules (including merchandise planning, global import, sourcing, sales management and replenishment) are installed at the Swiss and French head offices, supporting a 20-strong team of buyers and merchandisers.

"There are more than 150 Colombus users at TALLY WEiJL. Colombus lies at the heart of our manufacturing, distribution and retail activities, confirms Alexis Bischoff. Since we first started working together in 1995, we decided on an integrated system. The advantages of an end-to-end solution are stable architecture and scalability, to support our international growth".

Tomorrow: a decision-support supply chain solution

To support TALLY WEiJL’s rapidly expanding business it has recently selected supply chain optimisation software, Colombus.NEXT from VCSTIMELESS, which is currently being deployed in a phased approach. They needed a solution able to manage historical data, sales and demand forecasting, key performance indicators, and economic and geographical criteria associated with each of its stores’ locations. “At the moment we are using a lot of in-house systems, says Irénée Higelin, Merchandise & Stock Control Manager, but with Colombus.NEXT we will be able to achieve complete visibility over all our business processes, using just a single application".

Anticipated benefits of the new solution include optimised allocation and assortments by geographical area, size and colour, leading to reduced markdowns on poor-performing lines, automated alerts, integrated and accurate buying and replenishment processes and visibility over product life cycles on a store by store basis. Having the right product in the right place will lead to a reduction in inter-store transfers and stock movements between stores and the warehouse, and increased sales and profits.

“Until now, the merchandise plan has been limited to a list of product references. We haven’t been able to evaluate the impact of out-of-stocks on sales”, says Irénée Higelin.

Thanks to multi-dimensional analysis cubes, TALLY WEiJL will be able to access consolidated data in just a matter of seconds, compared to hours with its previous system.