South Africa’s HomeChoice remodels its planning processes with Oracle Retail Cloud to drive efficiency and sales improvements.
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. and CAPETOWN, South Africa—15 October 2020
HomeChoice Holdings, one of South Africa’s largest home shopping retailers and financing providers, has deployed Oracle Retail planning and optimization solutions to drive more sales and enhance the customer experience. With integrated data science, retail solutions give HomeChoice a more holistic understanding of how shoppers interact with the brand to make better buying decisions and deliver more relevant customer offers.
“We adopted a top-down approach and gained insight and speed at all levels of the plan with Oracle Retail. Our speed to market-our response time is so much faster now due to transparent, accurate data,” said Samantha Jefferies, head of planning, HomeChoice Holdings. “The implementation fundamentally changed the ownership of the plan for our teams. Planners are now accountable from the cost through the sale of the inventory. With multi-user access, we reconcile the plan across groups, gain transparency, improve collaboration, and eliminate manual errors.”
With the new technology, HomeChoice can bundle offers to provide customers more complete shopping experience. As an example, a consumer may be in the market for a bedding set. HomeChoice can offer different variations, including a standard set or include curtains, pillows, and throws to complete the collection. The consumer experience is improved, and the retailer can plan and align the demand for the related items behind the scenes.
“With the global health crisis, South Africa faced a strict lockdown. The Cognira team didn’t miss a beat. Our teams worked well together and adapted our timelines to account for the changing work environment while remaining within budget,” said Adriaan Smit, product manager - logistics, distribution, and merchandising, HomeChoice Holdings.
Working with Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) member Cognira, the HomeChoice team implemented Oracle’s planning and optimization solutions in seven months. The teams quickly pivoted to a remote environment to maintain continuity with the Cognira team. HomeChoice maintained a focus on change management and training throughout the implementation of Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning Cloud Service and Oracle Retail Assortment and Item Planning Cloud Service. The continual involvement of the users in the process will continue to provide a smooth transition as HomeChoice rolls out of Oracle Retail Price Optimization and the Oracle Retail Science Platform Cloud Service. Cognira also partnered with Orvis, Groupe Dynamite, and IDKids to implement the solutions.
“We are honored to collaborate with HomeChoice and look forward to their continued success as the team rolls out additional science and services. Their ability to mobilize quickly with our cloud service reflects the urgency global retailers feel to deliver value,” said Mike Webster, senior vice president, and general manager, Oracle Retail.
