Chief Supermarkets Enhances Back Office Ops with BRdata
Chief Supermarkets, a family-owned independent based in Defiance, Ohio, is seeing strong results from its BRdata back-office enterprise software installation after one year of deployment.
"The main reason [we chose BRdata] is the company and services provided behind the scenes that make this program work,” said Jenny Thome, controller at Chief Supermarkets. “We have much better control over what’s communicated to our stores. We now have the best of both worlds, when it comes to sending item maintenance. Price changes can be scheduled or sent immediately to all stores. Plus, we can easily control the item maintenance changes, instead of sending unneeded maintenance down to the stores.”
In addition, the ability to host enhanced and group promotions to its ISS45 POS system has saved the retailer a great deal of time each week, according to Thome. “It’s a huge relief to no longer have to connect to each of the 11 stores,” she said. “Now we just enter the promotion once and send it to all of the stores, just like any other sale item. In addition to now hosting promotions, we can also host COOL labels to our fresh item scales, return codes, and store and vendor coupons, just to name a few.”
Using BRdata’s thin-client DSD system, Chief now has a centralized receiving system, instead of needing a separate receiving database in each store, which means that any potential issues across all stores can be quickly addressed. “If one store’s cost is incorrect, we can immediately fix it for all stores,” said Thome. “We also use the receiving system to measure and track known shrink.”
Some of the added enhancements include the ability for stores to connect to the corporate office to maintain their manager’s specials, a special U-Save for their labeling system integrated with their promotion system, and two-tiered frequent shopper pricing. Upcoming deployments will be a store purchase order functionality and enhancements to Chief’s ad planning abilities, according to Thome.