Drive growth and foster lasting customer relationships with an end-to-end retail solution that connects people, information, and processes across your organization—reducing complexity from sales to supply.

Dynamics AX Retail 2012Microsoft Dynamics® AX for Retail can connect critical point-of-sale (POS) and headquarters processes with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financials right out of the box for a comprehensive solution that delivers value in every area of the organization.

Why Microsoft Dynamics for retail? Retail is detail and complexity. Retailers have to reduce inventory investment while they improve in-stock positions, increase customer service while they reduce labor costs, and decrease operation costs while they expand to multiple channels. Add to these demands the need to consolidate acquisitions, fight off encroaching competition, and do it all in a challenging economic cycle, and it is clear that retail requires advanced business solutions. Microsoft Dynamics AX can help retailers better manage retail operations, processes, and relationships for greater profitability. Smart and cost effective with low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Because Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail is built on Microsoft® products and technology, you can maximize your current IT investments for fast return on investment (ROI). You also can innovate by adding functionality at a faster pace and more cost-effectively, enabling you to scale your operations, add locations, and change processes as new retail opportunities arise Benefits

  • AX Retail POSAccelerate business success with a single, end-to-end solution.
  • Reduce complexity and improve operational efficiency across your retail operation with a single solution that standardizes processes across multiple sites and provides deep insight into business performance.
  • Empower employees to improve customer satisfaction.
  • Help people to connect with customers and suppliers and work fast and smart with access to Role Tailored tools and information specific to sales associates, store managers, buyers, and more
  • Add stores and expand into new retail channels.
  • React quickly to change and expand your business model by adding stores and distribution centers and taking advantage of multichannel retail opportunities. With the capability to build profitable supply chain relationships, you can get ahead of demand and improve margins.
  • Get people up to speed quickly—even with a rapidly changing workforce.
  • Minimize training requirements with a solution that works like and with familiar Microsoft products. The easy-to-use, intuitive user interface makes it easy for people to start working right away.

Functionality and Features

Centralized store management
  • Manage POS terminals centrally, including visual profiles, functional profiles, user interface layouts, and employee permissions.
  • Consistent data model and business rules between store and ERP processes provide accurate, timely, and consistent data.
  • Powerful data replication helps ensure critical updates across the organization: configurable, flexible inventory and financial updates, sales order payments, gift card usage, and issuance and usage of loyalty points.

Flexible POS
  • Purpose-built POS components are integrated into Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail.
  • Continue to capture transactions and serve customers even when store connectivity to headquarters is down with fault-tolerant, resilient POS.
  • Optimize the user interface for store roles with graphical “drag and drop” designer for improved productivity and customer service.
  • Powerful POS capabilities include: on account, global voucher, returns management, info codes, returns/voids/markdowns, and inventory receipt/lookup/counts.

Powerful merchandising
  • Optimize for profitability with pricing flexibility, including: flexible discounts, group/item/customer discounts, mix and match, and buy-one-get-one scenarios.
  • Optimize purchasing and replenishment: Purchase quantities based on size, color, and style; and use replenishment processes, including cross-docking, to suggest item distribution between stores with immediate updates to transfer journals.
  • Flexible four-level item hierarchy drives valuable reporting insight to improve assortment planning and product mix, including special item groups, location-specific pricing, customer-specific pricing, and promotions.

Global reach and scalability
  • Adapt quickly to changing business requirements with POS add-ins and extensible headquarters software that can be tailored to meet specific retail needs.
  • Scale your solution as your business grows and add stores and distribution centers to help you compete—locally and internationally. Easily add users and sites with three-tier architecture and integration with other Microsoft technology such as Microsoft SQL Server® 2008.
  • Easily operate your business across geographies and locations with flexible deployment options and built-in support for 38 countries in 40 language versions.
  • Capitalize on new opportunities with a Web services framework that makes it faster, easier, and more affordable to build expanded, profitable partner relationships.

Multichannel enablement
  • Reduce TCO with out-of-the-box support for critical payment integration, including debit and credit through Payment Services for Microsoft Dynamics ERP.
  • Enhance the customer experience by managing payments across channels—including mixing and matching payment providers by channel; buying online and returning to a physical store; and leveraging support for shopping carts.
  • Create and publish catalogs and manage offers across multiple channels.

Hardware and payment compliance
  • Support retail industry standards, including OPOS, which enables maximum flexibility in POS hardware and peripherals choice.
  • Manage PCI data security standards compliance and ongoing support.

Investment protection
  • Increase the value of Microsoft Dynamics AX throughout the life of the solution with the Business Ready Enhancement Plan, a global maintenance plan with benefits that include product upgrades, predictable pricing, online support through Customer Source and Knowledge Base, and unlimited e-learning.
  • Extend the value of your solution through tight integration with other Microsoft business applications and technologies, including: Microsoft Office Project Server, Windows® Workflow Foundation, and Microsoft unified communications tools.
  • Enhance security, reliability, and scalability though integration with SQL Server 2008. For example, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 running on SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server® 2008 can compress the database size by 40 to 60 percent, which can lead to lower hardware and data maintenance costs.

Sectors

As an in-store retailer, your operation needs to rely on accurate information about your customers, your stock, your sales and your supply chain in order.

Fast-moving consumer goods are particularly well adapted for the multi-channel world. Consumers expect to be able to interact, research and buy.

Few sectors have been more radically affected by the rise and influence of the internet than health and beauty. Traditional bricks and mortar companies.

Fast-moving electrical goods are particularly well adapted for the multi-channel world. Consumers expect to be able to interact, research and buy from retailers.Food and beverage retailers must overcome many considerable challenges before they can begin to deliver customer satisfaction.

Fulfillment Services : From pick and pack, credit card transactions, inspection of returned merchandise, charity donations and beyond, fulfilment activities.

As in any sector, it is the most streamlined, adaptive and functionally efficient operations that will survive and thrive. Whatever stage your Jewellery, gifts and collectibles business is at, your IT could well be holding you back by constraining your ability.