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Client Overview

Established in 1986, Choppies is a supermarket chain of multinational grocery and general merchandise, headquartered in Botswana. The group has its footprints in 8 Sub-Saharan countries, which include Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia and Mozambique.

Choppies is known for its excellent services, delivered with the support of their 17000+ employees, working across 250+ supermarkets and 11 distribution centers.

The Challenge

Choppies embarked on a significant expansion drive, which primarily demanded operational efficiency in the form of standardisation across the stores. Hence, they were looking for a solution with the following capabilities:

• Handle high volume of transactions, i.e. 5000 bills per store in a day
• CXO level dashboard with real-time data analysis
• Streamline data sync from store to HO and vice versa
• Round-the-clock access to warehouse inventory
• Stock recommendation engine
• Integration with third-party software

The Solution

The African retail giant discovered with Intellect Commerce, a team with matching spirit that supported to build customised capabilities in the software solution – iRetail Suite, which offered the following benefits to Choppies:

• Customised Point-of-Sale Solution – Highly configurable billing software with advanced features including touch interface, pole display, role-based authorisation for price/quantity change, and more such features, for seamless day-to-day operations
• CXO-Level Dashboard – Provision of an analytics engine with a top-level aggregated view, along with significant KPIs for estimating the overall health of the entire business chain
• Store Manager Dashboard – Customised reporting framework for tracking daily store performance
• Third-Party Integrations – Seamless integration with peripheral devices, payment gateways, digital wallets, air-time and utility bill service providers for reduced manual intervention at the billing counter
• Auto Replenishment Engine – An automatic stock recommendation engine to lower stock-outs and reduce impulse buys to streamline the purchase mechanism
• Agile Pricing – Flexibility to manage variant pricing options depending upon the store, warehouse and customer category
• Offline Billing Support – Provision to continue business operations with the support of offline billing in case of low network or power outages, which is a common issue in Sub-Saharan countries
• Tender Acceptance in Multiple Currencies – Provision for the end customer to make payment in multiple currencies for a single purchase (a common practice in Zimbabwe)

The Benefits

• End-to-End Retail Solution – A single software solution was deployed with Point-Of-Sale, inventory management, procurement, financial accounting, along with retail analytics, which streamlined the business operations across the 8 Sub-Saharan countries
• Centralised Business Controls – Secured operations with all preferences and controls, including MIS, inventory management, procurement, role-based authorisation and more, is now managed at the head office
• Efficient Business Operations – Seamless integrations and smooth operations, supported the brand in its expansion journey across the Sub-Saharan region