Luxury goods retailer, Lancel, streamlines merchandising management with VCSTIMELESS

LANCEL, part of the luxury brands Richemont Group, is the international fashion house behind the design, production and retail of upmarket leather bags and accessories. Other prominent international fashion brands belonging to Richemont include Mont Blanc, Dunhill, Chloë, Hackett and Cartier. LANCEL has around a hundred stores throughout the world, including most countries in Europe and many parts of Asia, Africa and United States.

Supply Chain overhaul & search for best in class retail software
In time for the opening of a major flagship store in Paris in November of last year, the group decided to arm its outlets and head office staff with new retail technology. It chose VCSTIMELESS to implement its integrated suite of Colombus Enterprise software, in just 140 days, starting with an upgrade of its head office supply chain and retail systems and then sixty Lancel retail outlets with new point of sale (EPoS) solutions. The project, named KIS “Keep it Simple”, which entailed a complete overhaul of Lancel’s existing ERP solution and a total of 4,000 man days, succeeded thanks to the vigour and dedication of a 30-strong team who ensured the project would be on-time and on-budget.

Objectives for the new system were to:

Meticulous project management “design by time” and strong support from Lancel’s CEO ; two of the key factors for success!
LANCEL chose VCSTIMELESS because of its proven track record, particularly in fashion retail, as well as the international focus of its Colombus technology (multi-lingual, multi-currency, multi-channel). After the contract was signed with VCSTIMELESS on 17th February 2004 and setting goals, work began almost immediately - the project kicked-off on 1st March 2004! A detailed project plan was immediately drawn up setting out specific deadlines per project stage, “design by time”. There was no room for compromise when it came to timing!

For VCSTIMELESS and the IT department at Richemont, the success of this project in just 140 days is put down to an impressive co-ordination of tasks and the full support of each phase of the project from senior management. The first stage of the project entailed assigning responsibilities and tasks to specific people, including enlisting any support from partners or hardware suppliers. Then, every three weeks, progress was assessed to ensure that deadlines would be met and budgets not exceeded. At these steering committees, representation from every department, including logistics, buying, marketing, sales, IT & finance, ensured that individual requirements were always being met, and not just being forced onto them. Integration with other software, such as existing warehouse and financial systems, required 53 interfaces to be incorporated, taking around three months to complete (between June and August 2004).

Initial training started during the first three weeks of September. Using 20 on-site trainers and 50 linked computers, this process quickly familiarised around 300 of Lancel’s retail staff with the new solution, as well as 100 head office staff. At the beginning of October two pilot stores in Paris were tested using the new software, and rolled out to the remaining stores by the month end. Within two weeks, the system went live and was fully up and running in time for the new store opening as planned, on 18th October. Thanks to the meticulous planning structures and methodology applied, the project was completed on time at each stage. The VCSTIMELESS project, worth around 1 million euros, also came in under-budget.

Benefits include complete visibility and control over the supply chain…
LANCEL now has complete visibility of its supply chain and is able to see how sales are performing throughout the group. At head office, users can monitor and control the necessary stock levels required to optimise sales, manage product allocations and assortments, and update buyers on promotional or price strategies to increase each store’s profitability. A selection of analytical tools and graphs show when and how to react, if either sales are dipping or stocks are running-out, and users have commented on this system being extremely easy-to-use and quick to react.. Management obtain figures in real time and can trust them to be accurate.



In the Lancel stores, the new EPoS technology has been well received. Staff no longer have to worry about running out of stock or doing daily orders, and instead can get on with the business of serving customers – a very important aspect in luxury goods retail.

Other benefits include:

Yves Aroud, IT Project Director at Richemont, concludes: “We have, throughout the entire project, managed to appreciate the expertise and direction of VCSTIMELESS. It diligently mastered all the necessary steps required to implement new systems and deal with process change in a large organisation, as well as listening to all the various parties’ needs and requirements. This approach, coupled with scrupulous attention to timescales and budget, allowed us to deploy the new enterprise suite in record time, finally rolling out to sixty stores and head office in less than two weeks. The success of the project is not just down to the investment made in powerful, new technology, but also largely due to great teamwork and the synergy between all parties involved.”