Founded in Lisbon in 1986 by Marina Reis Ramos and Mário Tendeiro, Gato Preto sells Portuguese homeware and decoration items under the slogan “Free-spirited homes, happy owners.”
Expansion of the product range
To be included in the store, products had to follow two rules: to be Portuguese and to be a handicraft. Even though the company was very successful, the concept proved to be too limited, and Gato Preto expanded their selection to furniture, lighting, textiles for the house and decoration, tableware and more from all around the world. In 1999, the company started designing its own products. Today, a large proportion of the items on sale are exclusively designed at the company. They also decided to go international by opening stores in Spain.
The need for an upgrade
As the business expanded both product- and location-wise, Gato Preto realized they needed to strengthen their IT capabilities. The company needed a solution that could bring together the whole operation. The company, that was already using an LS Retail solution in several of the stores, decided to implement the LS Retail software solution based on Microsoft Dynamics. The solution was deployed with the help of Arquiconsult, an LS Retail partner in Portugal and Spain.
Benefits front to back
Thanks to a single application that covers anything from POS terminals, store systems, back office and head office, today Gato Preto’s system integration issues are a thing of the past. As Rui Santos, General Manager at Arquiconsult put it, “The LS Retail software solution delivers the breadth and depth of functionality demanded by Gato Preto, without the need to build, manage and maintain multiple applications and interfaces. It delivers improved merchandise decision planning, and enhanced scalability and real-time performance reports.”
A clear overview of the business
With LS Retail software, the company has an overview of long term sales data based on posted sales data. This allows managers to see how stores have been performing, drilling down to individual stores or groups of stores. Management can also gauge the effectiveness of specific price promotions and even view the performance of individual item categories and product groups. The data is always accurate because as the owner, Mario Tendeiro, puts it, “The LS Retail software solution works off a single database, and therefore, there is only one version of the truth.” An hourly sales distribution report gives Gato Preto the possibility of viewing how its stores are performing within different periods of the day, and check sales distribution based on:
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Points of Sale
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total income
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number of customers
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number of items
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average basket size
Because LS Retail software consolidates trading, invoicing, and ordering systems into a homogenous platform, Gato Preto today can produce sophisticated reports. Today Gato Preto can confidently expand, confident of retaining effective management and overview of all stores in all countries.
Fewer errors, greater productivity
By integrating the data flow between all retail and accounting functions, Gato Preto has eliminated data errors and manual data processing. All processes in the company are now much quicker because data flows seamlessly from one part of the business to another. Another benefit is that head office now has total control over prices. The organization can now direct and enforce store prices from head office.
Human resource management made easy
The LS Retail software solution also offers a human resource management integration that was a perfect fit for the company’s HR, as it is tightly integrated with Microsoft Dynamics ERP, particularly the Accounting, Sales and Collections, Purchasing and Payments. Payroll in retail companies requires a flexible solution, compliant with turnover, shifts, absence and overtime registration. Due to the wide geographical spread of the Gato Preto stores, several different agreements with different demands had to be addressed. The LS Retail software solution can cope with the different legal requirements in Portugal and in Spain, thus accompanying Gato Preto’s expansion and allowing for both countries’ payroll (involving over 1000 employees) to be performed by only two people.
