Auchan has turned to supply chain software vendor TXT e-solutions to help the company manage its increasingly complex planning and merchandising activities within its textile divisions

Over the past 45 years, the Auchan Group has grown continuously, especially in France where it now has over 120 hypermarkets. A mission of turning itself from a distributor into a brand and building its own complete range of products to satisfy all its customers’ needs has under-pinned the company’s growth. Auchan’s Apparel Purchase Centre in France last year decided that it needed help with redefining targeted ranges and adapting more quickly to changes in demand for its womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, babywear,
shoes and childcare divisions. As a result, the retailer opted for an integrated range of TXT’s demand planning software so that it has a reliable and reactive forecasting system in place capable of adjusting the product offering at any time.

Auchan will use TXTDemand to assist with planning purchases, managing assortments and replenishing stores by analysing sales data to determine the right product in the right quantity at the right time. To help with the sourcing and purchasing of merchandise with a number of internal and external suppliers, Auchan has chosen TXT’s product lifecycle management (PLM) and collaborative solutions, TXTProduct and TXTChain, in order to plan collections, manage product technical data, collaboratively source and manage offers. TXTDrive will give the retailer more analytical prowess so that it can easily gauge its supply chain performance using specially created on-screen ‘dashboards’ and ‘key performance indicators.’ And to give the retailer the ability to see what selected items will actually look like when displayed in stores before buying or allocating them, a VISUAL RETAILING tool for merchandising has also been integrated into the TXT software suite.

"We expect an increase in turnover on apparel in our hypermarkets from using TXT’s software, as well as more control over our margins,” says Daniel Malouf at Auchan. “Stock rotations in stores will be speeded-up and we look forward to the possibility of being able to make lots of users work in a ‘collaborative’ way.”

Auchan says that, at first, it will concentrate on the 'womenswear' segment, and then possibly extend the use of the system to other activities.

"Auchan, as such an important player in the retail industry, provides us with a project in line with TXT’s own vision: the need to continually adapt to changing situations using pertinent information. But with Auchan’s supply chain being so complex - from the creation of a collection right up to the procurement of merchandise to stores, often with various parties throughout the world - an effective and reactive solution was crucial," says Gilles Alais, sales director at TXT e-solutions France. "We are proud to have gained Auchan’s trust in such a strategic part of its business.”