- Next-Generation, Business Process as a Service Platform, Intellipeak, Improves Sales Effectiveness and Enhances Customer Service
TEANECK, New Jersey, Jan. 27, 2011 (PR Newswire Europe) --
/PRNewswire/ -- Cognizant , a leading provider of business, technology, and consulting services, today announced it has helped global retailers successfully manage the peak shopping season using its business process as a service (BPaaS) platform, Intellipeak. The BPaaS platform combines software, services, and industry-specific best practices to provide an end-to-end business solution. Using Intellipeak, Cognizant supported more than a dozen retailers across three continents in the 2010 peak season, representing more than 30,000 stores and billions of dollars in online transactions.
Intellipeak enables retailers to manage key risks and achieve trouble-free high-volume sales during the peak shopping season by assessing the readiness of business processes, IT systems, and underlying infrastructure. It covers all key business process assets and supports the entire retail life-cycle from merchandizing, warehousing and distribution, to multichannel sales and fulfillment. Equipped with collaborative Enterprise 2.0 features such as community blogs and dashboards for peak business performance monitoring, the platform provides customers a peak readiness index to calibrate risks, heat maps to identify peak timing of key business processes, and an implementation review and preparation plan for the next peak season.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), the world's largest retail trade association, the holiday season can represent anywhere between 25 percent and 40 percent of annual sales for some retailers. In a recent announcement, NRF reported that preliminary 2010 holiday sales in the U.S., which combine the full months of November and December, rose 5.7 percent to $462 billion, representing the best holiday sales gain since 2004 when holiday sales increased 5.9 percent.
"The peak holiday season calls for the highest degree of operational efficiency, business process agility, and infrastructure preparedness," said Brian Light, CIO of Staples, Inc., the world's largest office products company. "With the help of Cognizant's extensive peak management and technology expertise, we were able to provide a seamless experience to our customers. Cognizant supported us with peak planning, training, and system health checks and monitoring to make sure it was 'business as usual' for Staples, even at the height of the peak season."
"At a time when retailers are focusing on increased customer intimacy and channel expansion as key business drivers, a hectic holiday shopping season presents a huge opportunity," said Francisco D'Souza, President and Chief Executive Officer at Cognizant.