Monday, August 20, 2007

Epicor|CRS Retail Suite for footwear & apparel industry

Epicor Software Corporation, a leading provider of enterprise business software solutions for the midmarket and divisions of Global 1000 companies announced one of the world’s largest athletic footwear and apparel companies with over $1 billion in annual revenue has selected EpicorCRS’ retail store management solutions to provide enhanced operational visibility and efficiency.

In addition to EpicorCRS’ Microsoft .NET-based Point-of-Sale (POS) and Merchandising applications, which includes CRS Allocations, CRS Transfers Plus and CRS Retail DataWarehouse modules, the specialty retailer plans to implement the CRS MobileStore and CRS RetailStore Central solutions, leveraging EpicorCRS’ professional services group for deployment support.

“We are very pleased to have completed negotiations on this retail contract, which we originally expected to close in our 2007 second quarter ended June 30, 2007, as we mentioned in our earnings announcement last month,” said George Klaus, chairman and CEO of Epicor.

“EpicorCRS is the ideal choice for retailers who demand proven, integrated, full-featured, scalable and global solutions, and we continue to expect a solid second half of the year in the retail segment of our business.”

Source : http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textiles-technology-news/newsDetails.aspx?news_id=39015

Hot Topic plans to use Lawson Smart Notification

Lawson Software announced that Hot Topic Inc licensed Lawson Business Intelligence, part of the Lawson S3 Enterprise Performance Management Suite. Lawson Business Intelligence will help enhance organization-wide reporting and analysis by giving decision-makers at Hot Topic access to information and decision support to help them quickly capitalize on business opportunities. Hot Topic signed the contract in Lawson's fourth quarter of fiscal 2007, which ended May 31, 2007.

An existing Lawson S3 Enterprise Financial Management and Human Capital Management customer, Hot Topic is a national mall-based specialty retailer. It operates 693 Hot Topic stores and 130 Torrid stores throughout the United States and Puerto Rico, offering both apparel and accessories.

The Lawson Business Intelligence application provides Hot Topic with a comprehensive and multi-dimensional view of financial, customer, internal process and human resource data. This data from Lawson and other operational systems provides the flexibility retailers need to support industry-specific business processes and evolving regulatory requirements.

Hot Topic expects this organization-wide reporting and analysis via role-based dashboards will help it deliver accurate and relevant information to employees at all levels, who can then make better-informed decisions faster.

Hot Topic also plans to use Lawson Smart Notification and ProcessFlow Professional, tools within the Lawson Business Intelligence application, to provide automated exception alerts and controls that will foster greater employee compliance with company procedures. The ProcessFlow Professional tool also offers built-in graphical documentation of business processes for simpler validation and auditing.

"A growing number of retailers are turning to Lawson for tools that enable them to view multi-dimensional business data," said Michelle Schooff, industry marketing director, Retail, Lawson Software. "Our business intelligence application helps retailers gain greater visibility and instill the discipline and predictability into business processes needed to help our customers achieve net profitability."

Lawson's industry-focused software solutions help retailers integrate the systems they use to run and grow their businesses. Lawson has more than 350 retail customers worldwide. Lawson customers include 10 of the top 25 specialty retailers, seven of the top 25 grocery chains, eight of the top 25 global retailers, six of the top 25 food service chains and eight of the top 30 U.S. convenience store companies.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

SAP® TechEd ’07 Gathers Global Ecosystem Together for Largest Technology Education Conference of the Year


SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the opening of registration for SAP TechEd ’07, the premiere technology education conference series of the year. To be held in four locations across the globe, this year’s events will focus on the immediate business benefits to be gained from enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA), will include an expanded curriculum of instructor-led hands-on workshops, and will introduce an enterprise SOA-based contest. The theme for this year’s event, “Enterprise SOA: Put the Power to Work,” will have attendees focusing on the real-world processes available to them today that can transform their IT infrastructures into enablers of business change and growth.

Keynote presentations will be hosted by Zia Yusuf, executive vice president of the Global Ecosystem and Partner Group, and will feature industry luminaries SAP CEO Henning Kagermann; Tim O’Reilly, published author and Web 2.0 expert; SAP Executive Board Member Peter Zencke; SAP Executive Board Member Claus Heinrich; SAP Corporate Officer and Member of the Executive Council Klaus Kreplin and SAP CTO Vishal Sikka. Now in its 11th year, SAP TechEd ’07 will take place in Las Vegas on October 1-5, Munich on October 17-19, Shanghai on November 6-7 and Bangalore on November 28-30.

In what has become a truly global event, SAP TechEd is open to all levels of IT professionals, from entry level to expert SAP developers and enterprise architects. As opposed to other industry events, SAP TechEd features hands-on workshops that are universally led by technical experts, rather than self-service or e-learning programs, with more than 1,000 hours of content planned for the initial Las Vegas show. Educational sessions will be presented by experts from SAP’s own development organization, along with members of the SAP ecosystem in customer-driven and community-driven sessions.

At SAP TechEd ’07, attendees will receive hands-on instruction in the steps to build their own enterprise SOA road map. Customer case studies, real-world strategies, practical tips and in-depth technology sessions on enterprise SOA will all be part of this year’s curriculum. SAP TechEd provides an environment for attendees to learn how to transform existing business processes and IT landscapes while taking advantage of the power and flexibility of enterprise SOA.

Enterprise SOA Showcase Contest: Customers Highlight Their SuccessesPrior to this year’s events, SAP will be hosting several Enterprise SOA Showcase Contests, which are three regional contests featuring a panel of industry luminaries as judges and public voting. Contestants will be judged on their project’s ability to access SAP applications and platform through Web services, demonstrated SOA business agility and measurable business results.

Industry luminaries such as Geoffrey Moore, renowned author and innovator, and Rodney Masney, president of Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG), will judge the top 20 entries for the North America regional contest, as determined by select ASUG members. The first 100 qualified entries for the North America regional contest will receive an iPod Nano, and a $10,000 grand prize will go to the overall winner, who will be announced at TechEd ’07 Las Vegas during the keynote presentations. For details and official rules of the contest, please visit https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/enterprisesoa.

Source : SAP AG

Friday, August 17, 2007

Garment Technology Expo a success!

South India’s largest exhibition on apparel production technology concluded in Bangalore with a positive note on July 15th 2007.

The impressive lamp lighting at the inaugural ceremony was jointly performed by the Chief Guest Mr. Dinesh J. Hinduja, Executive Director, Gokaldas Exports Pvt. Ltd. and Guests of Honor Mr. Weijian Wang, President, Shanghai Garment Machinery Zone, Mr. Naseer Ahmed, Vice Chairman, Bombay Rayon & Chairman, Scott Garments, and Mr. Inderjit S. Sahni, Chairman & Managing Director, Garment Technology Expo Pvt. Ltd.

GTE’07 International Bangalore had two important delegations from China led by Mr. Weijian Wang, President Shanghai Garment Machinery Zone representing the Chinese associations supporting Garment Technology Expo in India. And the second delegation was led by Ms. He Ye, Vice Chairperson of China Sewing Machine Association, organizer of CISMA.

The garment technology sector in India is fast transforming and GTE provides the apt platform to showcase the best of products from all parts of the world.

The second edition of GTE South India in Bangalore has proved to be a smashing hit with the participants as well as the trade visitors to the exhibition.

The exhibition has met with an unprecedented success amidst growing concerns amongst garment manufacturers and exporters to be competitive and face the challenges of open market competition.

What set the exhibition apart was the state of the art world class exhibition centre of BIEC at Tumkur Road, Nr. Peenya Industrial area from many other similar exhibitions was the sheer size of the space taken by the exhibitors.

Also unique to the exhibition was the convenience and ease for the visitors with drive in parking facility to help them concentrate more on critical issues related to the business and make best use of the opportunity offered by GTE and witness the live demos and display of complete range of machines and material such as Sewing, Embroidery CAD/CAM, Knitting, Dyes & Chemicals, Quilting, Fusing, Laundry, Fabrics, Fancy Yarn, Finishing, Dyeing, Cutting, Printing & Packaging, Software Solutions, Spreading, Spares & Attachments, Accessories & Trims, Testing Equipments, Support Services, IT Solutions, Trade Publications etc.

Over 800 companies and brands were on display and over 16000 trade visitors visited the 3 day fair. The close proximity to the garmenting hub at Peenya and near by clusters played an important role in the huge visitor turnout.

“Though the Indian garment machinery industry is already gearing up to face the international challenges & has started producing world class, high quality laundry & stream finishing machines for Indian as well as international markets. Other segments of the garment machinery industry are also improving upon their quality to come up to the expectations of apparel industry."

"This exposition has gone a long way by offering them an excellent opportunity to get acquainted with the new world trends & upgrade their manufacturing processes by adopting the latest technologies in vogue internationally.

This in turn will assist the Indian apparel manufacturers to produce world class high quality products & face the competition from countries like China , Hong Kong, Eastern Europe, Japan Etc.” said Mr. Inderjit S. Sahni- the organizers of Garment Technology Expo 2007 International Bangalore.

“The garment technology industry in India is thinking futuristic & planning to take on the best in terms of price & quality. Various segments of the industry have been silently working in the background to improve their quality with the objective of helping the domestic readymade garment manufacturers & exporters in their endeavor to produce world class quality products.

The Garment Technology Expo offers an another opportunity to the domestic industry to further upgrade their skills & match the international levels in the times to come.”

Source : Fibre2fashion

SewEasy software ventures into newer arena

SewEasy Pvt Ltd implemented a garment costing and production planning system at prestigious shirt manufacturer Gerboy Tekstil in Istanbul, Turkey recently.

The MTM based SewEasy software is well known in Asia, Middle-East and Africa with top manufacturers like Hirdaramani using it over a decade.

It uses the dot-net platform, with multi language support, covering all major languages of the world. The Turkish users found it easy since their local language was built into the system, minimizing the training cost. Keerthi Abeywickrama of Sri Lanka provided on-site training.

The penetration into European territory by Asian apparel software was an outcome of the newly formed Fashion and Textile Cluster (FTC) project, which is financed by the European Union.

The FTC project is intended to contribute to the fulfilment of Turkey’s ambitious targets for the apparel sector by year 2010.

The overall objective is to increase international competitiveness of SMEs in the textile and clothing sectors in Turkey.

Source : Fibre2fashion

OptiTex Ltd appoints Girmonsky as VP

Israel-based OptiTex, a leading international developer of software for the fashion and textile industry has announced the appointment of Alon Girmonsky as VP of Business Development for the company.

In his new position, Girmonsky will assist OptiTex in meeting the growing demand for the company’s technology in the new markets. Among his other activities, Mr. Girmonsky will be responsible for the development and implementation of OptiTex Internet business strategy.

Over the past year alone, OptiTex has more than doubled its customer base in Israel and has significantly expanded its international activities. The objective of the company is to continue promoting this trend.

Alon Girmonsky (36) has 15 years of experience in the high-tech industry and has held various senior level positions over the last 10 years.

Until recently, Alon served as VP of Business Development & Technologies at Taldor, one of the five leading Software and Communication Integration companies in Israel. Prior to Taldor, Alon was actively involved in a number of Internet startups specializing in ecommerce and online advertising.

Alon Girmonsky holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Sciences and Mathematics and an MBA in Business Management from Tel Aviv University.

Source : Fibre2fashon.com

IBM to refresh M&S in-store systems

IBM announced that it has won a systems integration contract with Marks & Spencer, the leading UK retailer, to refresh its in-store technology and systems over the next three years.

Under the contract IBM will project manage the deployment of key areas of Marks & Spencer's in-store systems across its UK and Ireland store estate. This will include the implementation of the Beanstore point-of-sale application from IBM Business Partner PCMS.

"This investment in our store systems is an important part of our store modernisation programme, which is designed to improve the overall shopping experience for our customers, including better and faster service at the till point," said Darrell Stein, IT Director of Marks & Spencer. "IBM has the expertise to implement solutions which meet the needs of M&S and its customers."

"Our work with Marks & Spencer is the latest example of IBM's strength in delivering customer-focused solutions in the retail industry," added John Riccio, Retail Industry Leader for IBM in the UK, Ireland & South Africa.

Source : Fibre2fashion