The Kienast corporate group, one of the five leading shoe retailers in Germany, will implement Zucchetti’s POS solution TCPOS and their ERP solution Mago ERP, in order to optimise the processes in their online and offline operative business. With around 400 stores and 2.200 employees, Kienast is present on the retail market with five different sales concepts: ABC shoe centre, K+K shoe centre, Shoe4You, street shoes and CLAUDIO shoes. It is also present in wholesale.
Marco Kling, CEO of Kienast group explains, “As one of the biggest shoe retailers, we want to future-proof our in-store and our online business. To tackle this challenge, the software has to be innovative and effective for our universal channel of business operation and it has to function smoothly and seamlessly. That is why we chose the POS solution TCPOS and the ERP solution Mago ERP by Zucchetti. These new systems will support us on our digitisation journey because they improve the quality of services in-store as well as enabling us to offer additional services to our customers”.
The Italian Zucchetti Group offers software solutions to retailers and hospitality businesses of any size, supporting them in making retail processes more efficient. Amongst others, this is carried out through the POS solution TCPOS, the workforce management solution Infinity and through the ERP solution Mago.
“TCPOS presents a highly integrable POS solution, which massively facilitates the collaboration with other systems through its iCore POS as a 360-solution”, says Dirk Schwindling, CEO of Zucchetti GmbH. “Therefore, employees in store can focus on other, more important things. Furthermore, based on data entered by the employee, our software solution provides an initial selection of shoes according to different criteria and thus makes daily operations a lot easier for the store’s employees”.
The Kienast group is the first retail fashion-provider to choose Zucchetti and has therefore strengthened Zucchetti’s position as a POS provider in the industry. Other retail and hospitality clients are Alnatura, Eataly, Friedel and Vodafone (amongst others).
“One reason for our decision is TCPOS’ expertise in the hospitality business, which is where we saw advantages that could help us in the future”, says Marco Kling. “For years, people in the industry have been working with mobile devices, handling payments through them and passing them on electronically. We could not find these processes in any fashion tills or software providers – but they are processes that definitely seem logical and practical nowadays; they are a starting point for adopting the services we have known for many years in the hospitality industry and for adapting these to our functionalities in the fashion industry”.
TCPOS renders it possible for companies of every size to make their omnichannel-processes more structured and effective. This includes mobile payment, paying with PayPal, self-service checkouts, kiosks and the integration of workforce management and, like it was the case in this scenario: Mago ERP as process-oriented logistics solution for stores. Sales from TCPOS immediately have a direct impact on the stock and can trigger further processes such as subsequent deliveries from a central warehouse, purchase orders or – if available – manufacturing orders.
Kienast intends to use the new software to integrate their online and in-store business, with the intention of establishing a “Universal Channel” business operation. Services to the customer should be digital and analogue, in order to provide the best possible service. For example, in the future, a digital stock of shoes will be accessible via the flexible store stock in Mago ERP as well, intending to increase the conversion rate.
“The key factor is to have a high level of transparency throughout the company and to give customers the opportunity to access the products via different channels”, says Marco Kling. “It is an aim and a requirement of ours to cater to the needs of tomorrow’s customers. Kienast sees the direct integration of Mago ERP with the POS solution as a very close collaboration and as a big advantage for faster processes. Mago as middleware will complete the existing ERP system. We are aiming to keep stock levels and changes almost in real-time across different legal entities as well as making them available across channels. We plan to implement further processes, where the already completed integration of all TCPOS systems should pay off tremendously.
About Kienast
With over 60 years of success, the Kienast group is one of the biggest shoe retailers in Germany. The following companies belong to the KIENAST group: Street Shoes, Shoe4You, the ABC shoe centres, the K+K shoe centres and CLAUDIO shoes. Together, these different sales concepts make up one of the largest and most successful companies in the German shoe industry. With around 1800 employees, more than 420 stores and an annual sales volume of 8 million pairs of shoes, Kienast manages to procure favourable conditions for its suppliers and therefore extend attractive price advantages to its customers.
