ibs Referential allows a flexible and detailed configuration of retailers needs. The core of this configuration is the definition of the organization and hierarchies. Both are structure information that will drive both:

• Communication and information available across the group
• Information definition and related information across the categories

Soft Solutions has designed various organizations and faced different complexity levels in retailer structure, leading

ibs Referential to be based on multiple organization and hierarchies. This point is at the heart of the Retail Business Suite and guarantees that information will be structured the right way in all the business services.

THE ORGANIZATION AS THE SKELETON OF COMMUNICATION

The organization structure reflects the physical organization of the retailer and the way the information is defined and communicated. Its definition will impact the business processes and authorizes a well-defined level of communication and aggregation.

Through the organization the information is both diffused from the root to the leafs (for example definition of a retail price at region level automatically diffused to connected stores) and consolidated from the leafs to the root (for example daily sales grouped automatically at the levels of region, banner, country, group…)

The organization can be unique or multiple by business in case of complex retailer organization and evolves with the retailer, allowing creating new entities and manage by date and statuses the existing entities.

PRODUCT HIERARCHIES

The other structure information is the product hierarchy; This one defines the products segmentation and authorizes various information managements depending on the considered elements.

The hierarchy allows to:

• Create hierarchy up-to 99 levels with code concatenation or not
• Determine the kind of product / product typology by element
• Determine information at the element level and inherit automatically to the connected items, helping in items creation and ensuring information integrity
• Determine related characteristics, units, taxes by element

In addition, hierarchy changes are managed and can be planned with and without inheritance of historical results depending on the retailer policy.

MULTIPLE HIERARCHIES TO MAP EACH BUSINESS NEEDS

Since each business is different, ibs Referential proposes to retailers to work with different hierarchies.

Then one can define a dedicated hierarchy for each business (purchase, sales, logistics) and manage relationship and inheritance with a single listing hierarchy. Items and information are connected to the listing hierarchy and pre-configured links creates the mappings to the other hierarchies.
In case of multi-channel or retailer groups with very different sales formats and policies.

ibs Referential also proposes to define different hierarchy for the same business but for different entities. For example, the sales hierarchy for hypermarket format can have more levels than the one for web channel, considered as an emerging market in some situation.

Organization and Hierarchies are the skeleton of the retailer and the information. ibs Referential provides the full features and flexibility to map the retailer organization. The ability to work with multiple structures is particularly well designed for international groups and feeds the need of top retailers.