With the retail industry becoming more and more competitive by the day, retailers everywhere are seeking new ways to improve efficiencies, speed up processes and strive ahead of their competitors through unique innovation.
Global retailer, Open 24 Seven has chosen to do exactly that through the use of automation.
The Open 24 Seven umbrella company encompasses operations across two businesses: SpyCameraCCTV and Alexander Francis. SpyCameraCCTV is a worldwide supplier of CCTV cameras, systems, spy cameras and spy equipment, whilst Alexander Francis specializes in high-quality garden furniture.
As one of the first customers to start using our Automation feature, Lee Adams, Managing Director of Open 24 Seven tells us why they chose to adopt Automation and how it has helped them with their retail success so far.
Why did Open 24 Seven decide to automate processes?
As a global omnichannel retail business, Open 24 Seven understands the importance of innovation in this ever evolving, ever competitive market. Lee explains: “Automation is crucial if we’re going to remain competitive.”
But how exactly does Automation allow retailers to remain competitive?
As can be expected, the core message of automating retail is in saving time that can be better spent on other activities. Who wants to be tasked with poring over endless data entry when they can instead be strategizing over new products to bring to market, or new ways to advertise current products? “We were inputting data twice and my motto is, if you have to do the same thing twice, you’re doing it one time too many!”, Lee agrees.
Furthermore, Lee also explains: "Brightpearl understands the challenges an ecommerce company faces and the critical importance of automation. Having orders, inventory, accounts and customer data in a single system is unbelievably helpful and reduces the time it takes for us to make business decisions. We are able to concentrate on growing the business rather than implementing and managing multiple separate systems."
So, given how important Automation clearly is to Lee and his thriving business, has it actually helped with their retail success? And if so, how?
How has Automation helped Open 24 Seven?
From giving Lee and his team time back to focus on sales and marketing, to improving efficiencies throughout the business, Open 24 Seven has reaped many benefits from automating their business processes.
Lee shares: “Brightpearl’s Automation feature has made things really slick around here. It’s basically meant that we don’t have to have an end of day process anymore. Everything is simplified and I now have the time to concentrate on other areas of the business, like finding new suppliers at lower prices and expanding operations."
But we understand that with the idea to automate retail, often comes the concern that it’s too complicated or too time-consuming to setup. We asked Lee to share his own thoughts on what it was like to adopt Automation:
“Automation is something people think is going to be complicated, but actually in Brightpearl’s case, it’s pretty straightforward. Once we’d setup the rules, there have been some massive time savings. As long as you know what you want to achieve at the end of it, setting up the Automation rules is pretty much a piece of cake.”
If you’d like to hear more about what Lee had to say about Automation, you can watch their customer story video below:
Your turn: how can you automate your own retail business?
There are a growing number of ways in which you can automate your processes with Automation.
Maybe you want to reduce the man hours spent on manually fulfilling orders? Is it invoicing that you wish to speed up? Are your team fedup of manually changing order statuses or checking whether orders have been paid?
Why not let Automation take care of the heavy lifting for you?
By designing the Automation rules based around desirable outcomes in your business, you can start managing by exception, rather than as a rule. Ultimately, this will give you valuable time back to help you grow further as a business.
If you want to know more about how exactly you can automate your own processes, answer this quick 5 question assessment now.
