Abnesh Raina, CEO and Founder Convergence of cloud, mobility, and globalization has transformed how businesses partner with an extended ecosystem including their suppliers. The current tools built a decade ago for a Brick-and-Mortar ecosystem have not kept up with these technological transformations, creating gaps. To fill the gaps between these ecosystems and technology trends, retailers have started using manual processes resulting in longer time to market, lower enterprise productivity, and customer experience issues. Alternatively, patchwork middleware is being installed which creates challenges with the extended architecture. Understanding these issues, San Francisco, CA based PlumSlice Labs, provides a suite of web and mobile apps to help retailers manage and sell their products more economically, creatively, and efficiently.
Abnesh Raina, CEO and Founder of PlumSlice Labs says, “We are leveraging the cloud to power extended enterprise collaboration, incorporating big data analytics to provide the insights on linkages between structured and unstructured data, as well as enabling mobile workflows to support the way retailers work today.”
PlumSlice Labs’ offerings include PlumSlice PIM+, DROPSHIP, ASSORTMENT PLANNING, SELECT, and Vendor Portal. PlumSlice PIM+ with integrated Digital Asset Manager addresses product and variation workflows, data and process governance, as well as resolving content distribution issues across multiple sales channels. The application enables data governance, rules based attribution, dynamic categorization and workflow visibility. PlumSlice DROPSHIP, another solution in the application Suite, helps retailers quickly, efficiently, and cost effectively onboard new vendors for ecommerce marketplace enablement and provides Endless Aisle functionality. “Our DROPSHIP module allows vendor fulfilled assortments to flow seamlessly into the digital ecosystem with immediate visibility to inventory, pricing and shipping performance,” says Raina.
Similarly, for understanding linkages between data sets and helping retailers to make assortment decisions faster, PlumSlice Labs offers the RESEARCH embedded ASSORTMENT PLANNING module.
Our DROPSHIP module allows vendor fulfilled assortments to flow seamlessly into the digital ecosystem with immediate visibility to inventory, pricing and shipping performance
PlumSlice’s SELECT application addresses product selection and sourcing collaboration issues impacting productivity across the extended enterprise.The tool monitors workflow and status with real-time collaboration both in and outside the retail organization, while reducing reliance on inflexible ERP systems. “Use the SELECT application to do more than choose the items available for purchase: actually create item data, variations, and SKU’s passing directly to ecommerce platforms while seamlessly informing ERP and vendor management,” explains Raina. The company also offers a cloud-based Vendor Portal which enables collaboration between buyers and suppliers to manage purchase orders, product catalogs, and shipments.
In one instance, one of PlumSlice Lab’s customer The Container Store (TCS), a retailer of unique storage and organization products wanted to enhance their internal processes to make even better decisions on a faster scale, helping bring the unique product offering of storage and organizational products to market faster and with more transparency. The company implemented PlumSlice Labs’ PlumSlice SELECT solution to streamline their product selection process and increase efficiency with mobile-enabled highly collaborative workflows. It resulted in delivering better visibility into the pipeline of TCS’ potential products and making more relevant and cost effective choices for their assortment irrespective of the location. “Our goal is always to make the digital commerce ecosystem cohesive, transparent and easily navigated for both the retailers and their partners, helping deliver a truly superior customer experience,” says Raina.
The company is focusing on enabling mobile workflows for relevant functions, as most of the businesses nowadays are not conducted behind a desk. Commenting on the future plan Raina affirms, “We are continuing to invest in mobile workflows, as well as our data management and decision automation capabilities to speed up the end to end processes for our customers.” In order to align the usability design and interaction of applications with the needs and expectations of today’s business user, PlumSlice Labs continues to make significant investments in their product development and R&D department.
