Fenwick, an iconic British department store, partnered with Hitachi Solutions to modernise its business using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce and Finance, creating a more connected digital retail experience. By integrating ecommerce, order management, customer data, and financial reporting on a single cloud platform, Fenwick now has better inventory visibility, a unified view of customers, and the agility to evolve its omnichannel offering.
The Customer
Fenwick is a prestigious British department store chain renowned for its luxurious product offerings and exceptional customer service. Founded in 1882 by John James Fenwick in Newcastle upon Tyne, Fenwick has become a hallmark of quality in the retail sector. The stores offer a wide range of high-end merchandise, including fashion, beauty products, homeware, and gourmet food.
Operating eight department stores in the UK, including one of the largest retail stores in Europe, in Newcastle. Fenwick’s commitment to curating exclusive and premium brands, combined with its heritage and distinctive shopping experience, makes it a key destination for shoppers.
The Challenge
The emergence of COVID-19 in the UK and subsequent government restrictions presented a significant challenge for Fenwick, a traditional brick-and-mortar retailer. With government instruction to close non-essential retail stores, Fenwick had to cease all operations, including online orders, which could not be fulfilled due to the lack of automated systems and infrastructure in place.
At the time, Fenwick said, “We have tried to keep our online business running to serve you, but we don’t have huge warehouses and automated systems; instead, a group of dedicated workers hand-pick the items you purchase from one of our designated stores.” This closure period allowed Fenwick to review its e-commerce offering and recognise the need to adapt to a significantly changed retail landscape.
We don’t have huge warehouses and automated systems; instead, a group of our dedicated workers hand-pick the items you purchase from one of our designated stores.
When reflecting on e-commerce, Fenwick further recognised that their legacy systems were unsuitable for the demands of a modern omnichannel business model. Fenwick identified several key issues, including the absence of a unified customer view, inconsistent reporting, and the need to improve global inventory visibility. Consequently, they needed assistance in updating their digital platform within stores, aligning with their omnichannel business aspirations.
Fenwick embarked on a significant investment to overhaul its systems, aiming to modernise operations and enhance the customer experience. This move enabled them to trade while restrictions were in place and positioned Fenwick to thrive in a post-pandemic retail environment, where flexibility and convenience would become paramount.
The Solution
Hitachi Solutions worked with Fenwick to explore the benefits of selecting Microsoft Commerce, a fully integrated module within Microsoft Dynamics Finance and Operations, a solution Fenwick already had in place. This allowed Fenwick to leverage the synergy between the two systems, enabling a quick adoption of Microsoft Commerce without adding complexity to their IT landscape.
As a result, integrating the E-Commerce and Order Management Systems (OMS) transformed Fenwick’s business operations by providing accurate customer data and a unified view across all sales channels. This has enabled Fenwick to understand its customers better, personalise marketing efforts and expand its omnichannel reach.
Additionally, the integration provided Fenwick with clear inventory visibility across all stores, a crucial factor for optimising stock levels and efficiently fulfilling customer orders. At the same time, the unified financial reporting system ensured consistent and reliable financial data, enhancing decision-making with a single, accurate version of the truth.
To support these improvements, Fenwick needed a partner with deep retail expertise, extensive Dynamics 365 knowledge and around-the-clock support for their busy retail environment. As well as managing large-scale projects, while maintaining smooth business operations. They chose to partner with Hitachi Solutions due to the experience of consultants, extensive service capabilities and ability to fit with their business needs.
“I’ve found working with the Hitachi Solutions team to be very successful. The approach to support and release management is excellent. Keep up the good work.”
Working with Hitachi Solutions
In addition to the retail transformation project, Fenwick wanted a long-term partnership that could offer support and expertise for new projects. The key to this relationship was advice and guidance related to Microsoft’s new offerings. In parallel with the implementation, Fenwick was introduced to the Hitachi Solutions Services team in October 2022.
This team provides proactive support and guidance to ensure the long-term success of client technology investments. For Fenwick, Hitachi Solutions provides a support service which covers all key applications. This includes Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain, and Warehouse. Hitachi Solutions also provides enhancement and advisory services to improve the end-user experience.
During the transition into service, Fenwick encountered a major incident that posed a risk to customer satisfaction. With a limited team working on Saturday, this quickly became critical. Fenwick reached out to Hitachi Solutions for help and was able to use the 24/7 on-call service. The team collaboratively worked with Microsoft to promptly resolve the problem, marking a strong foundation for our partnership.
Application Support service
The Hitachi Solutions Application Support service provides reactive and proactive support to protect Fenwick’s live environment. For example, Fenwick encountered a significant challenge with Point-of-Sale terminals while testing a mandatory service update. Hitachi Solutions worked with Microsoft to classify the situation as a Severity A issue and push a hotfix. Hitachi Solutions’ relationship with Microsoft also allowed Fenwick to extend their mandatory update timeline, ensuring they had time to complete comprehensive testing.
Advise and Adopt service
The Hitachi Solutions Advise and Adopt service introduces customers to new functionality and helps them to apply it. Hitachi Solutions highlighted new business performance analytics capabilities that aligned with Fenwick’s ongoing discussions around a data lake implementation. Hitachi Solutions showcased the practical benefits of the new functionality and advised on steps to adopt this, which is being considered as part of their data lake implementation.
The Future
Looking ahead to the third year of the partnership, Hitachi Solutions and Fenwick will continue to embrace innovation and continual improvement. Our collaboration has consistently focused on enhancing system performance for end users across all business departments.
Through regular reviews of the Microsoft product roadmap, the Hitachi Solutions team will support Fenwick in taking advantage of new functionality and moving custom code to standard functionality wherever possible.
In addition, work is ongoing to continuously improve Fenwick’s current fulfilment system using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Advanced Warehousing, which will lead to maximising global stock and fulfilling multichannel orders for Fenwick.
