Luxottica Group Turns to Groupsoft To Use SAP Retail to Expand Global Retail Operations for Sunglass Division

SAP Retail Expertise Allows Groupsoft to Streamline Luxottica's Sunglass Merchandising and Supply Chain Operations. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) September 18, 2011 - NEW YORK -- Groupsoft, (http://www.groupsoftus.com), an international provider of complete retail solutions, including ERP implementations, supply-chain optimization, point of sale, Merchandising and Assortment Planning (MAP), and consulting services, today announced that the company has been helping Luxottica Group to expand its global retail infrastructure for its sun retail chains by implementing merchandising and supply chain functions utilizing SAP Retail. Groupsoft has previously partnered with Luxottica Retail North America to design elements of Luxottica's North American optical retail supply chain model and Groupsoft has implemented the sun model for Luxottica's sun retail chains in the United Kingdom. Currently Groupsoft is working on a deployment for Mexico.

Groupsoft has been working with Luxottica, a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of fashion, luxury, sport and performance eyewear, for several months to help the company get the most value from its SAP Retail enterprise platform. According to Michael Braine, Vice President of Retail IT for Luxottica, the company licensed SAP Retail to streamline its merchandising and supply chain execution for the company's eyewear retail store chains. When they assessed the effort it would take to implement and deploy support for each brand in sequence, they realized that the time required and associated costs were not amenable, so they started looking for partners to help with implementation and deployment. That's when they started looking for a consulting partner.

"Groupsoft was more compelling to us because they had credible, retail-specific resources that had both general industry knowledge and SAP IS-Retail specific experience. Onboarding focused on our company specifics and the specifics of our configuration and instance," said Braine. "It's about value, not cost. They were able to be highly productive in a few weeks, and allowed us to optimize our SAP Retail implementation. They helped us implement and realize value much faster than we could have on our own."

Drawing from their extensive experience with SAP Retail, Groupsoft was able to create global templates that could be reused to accommodate local market conditions. The Groupsoft team was able to determine the specific aspects of local retail operations for Luxottica's sunglass stores that would benefit from a common solution. As a result, Braine's team was able to create parallel deployments for SAP Retail. The U.S. and U.K. markets were the first to be deployed, and the Groupsoft team is currently using the same model to in the Mexican market.

"Luxottica's sunglasses products are ideally suited for a global merchandising strategy. We can create a customizable model for SAP Retail that can be adapted to lower cost of goods," said Amitabh Nema, founder and CEO of Groupsoft. "And using the lessons learned from building models for the U.S. and the U.K, we are confident that we can help Luxottica streamline retail operations.

About Groupsoft

Founded in 2003, Groupsoft is one of the world's leading providers of complete Retail Solutions, including ERP implementations, Supply-chain Optimization, Point-of-sale solutions, Business Analytics consulting, implementation, Development, Support and Testing services. The firm specializes in SAP Retail Support and Implementation. The company also offers GrMAP (http://www.grmap.com), a Merchandise Assortment Planning tool and SAAS based GrApps - an Enterprise Mobility Solution tightly integrated with key ERP applications. Groupsoft's strong in-depth Vertical Knowledge clubbed with experienced consulting experts and its Product becomes a unique and compelling offering for a retailer.

The company employs more than 150 highly qualified and experienced retail optimization professionals servicing mid- to large-sized enterprise customers in USA, Canada, United Kingdom, the Middle East and India. The company has its office in NewYork and Princeton Junction, NJ in USA and is continuing aggressively towards expansion.

For more information, visit http://www.groupsoftus.com.

Media Contact:
Arif Khan
Groupsoft
(647) 871-1484
arif.khan ( @ ) groupsoftus dot com

Tom Woolf
Woolf Media & Marketing
(415) 259-5638
tomw ( @ ) woolfmedia dot com

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