The Path to International Growth Eases with BluJay Solutions’ Supply Chain Trading Platform

The Mothercare group is comprised principally of two iconic international retail brands; Mothercare and Early Learning Centre. Synonymous with children and parenting, both brands have a reputation for specialism, quality, safety, and innovation in providing products and services for mothers, mothers-to-be, babies, and young children. The group’s brands operate through three distinct channels to market; UK stores, Direct (being the in-home and in-store internet-based businesses and catalogue mail order), and International, under which the group franchises (or participates in joint venture) operations delivering the Mothercare and Early Learning Centre brand retail operations in overseas markets.

Mothercare offers its customers a multi-channel shopping environment through its network of retail stores, catalogues, and the internet. It operates through three main store formats in the UK – parenting centres located on out-of-town retail parks, traditional high street stores, and ‘shops in shops,’ where one retail outlet jointly hosts both brands. The company has ambitious plans to grow its business internationally with over 600 overseas stores already, stretching from South Africa to Russia and Australia. The company announced in September 2010 its plans to open 200 Mothercare stores in India. Much of this growth has been achieved by entering into joint ventures and franchise arrangements according to what best suits the local market, and this model is expected to continue indefinitely. As you would expect of an international retailer, Mothercare sources its products internationally and additionally works in partnership with a dedicated network of manufacturers to custom develop products to its own specific requirements. Stocking items from booties for premature babies to outdoor play areas, Mothercare deals with suppliers ranging in size from sole traders and small boutiques who have sometimes not traded electronically before, up to large multinationals running sophisticated systems and technologies. The result is a complex global supply chain that must adapt to deal with vastly differing regional requirements at all stages of the trading cycle.

Mothercare first implemented BluJay’s Commerce solution in 2001 as a replacement for its original pure EDI Windows-based system, with the new web-based system providing a low-cost support for the UK supply chain with control provided through workflow functionality. An early adopter of fully electronic trading within the UK retail industry, Mothercare took the decision to invest to stay ahead of the game. An established relationship was already in place with BluJay Solutions, who had supplied EDI-related services to Mothercare for over 20 years, so implementing BluJay’s market-leading solution to manage trading electronically, was the obvious choice. The system provides access to supply chain data including supplier inventory, purchase orders, ASNs, and invoices, and has pre-built data integration points that allow the exchange of multiple formats of data with Mothercare’s other business systems, including merchandising and warehousing systems by JDA Software and Manhattan Associates. The BluJay MessageBroker module also exchanges EDI data onto the IBM VAN and EDI data to the UK government’s department of revenue and customs, removing the requirement for additional or duplicate processes. With BluJay’s Commerce, Mothercare issues on average 5,000 purchase orders electronically per week and receives on average 1,900 invoices electronically per day from suppliers. A key and growing part of Mothercare’s business enabled by the BluJay Solutions system is the drop shipping of orders made in store or online for larger items such as outdoor play equipment. These are fulfilled directly by the manufacturer and delivered to the customer, with full visibility of all order data available to Mothercare throughout the process. BluJay’s Commerce additionally provides Mothercare with an external FTP receiving capability, which predominantly supports its franchisees by facilitating sales order management, stock, and sales data exchanges into its core systems. Around 20 users within Mothercare’s UK head office supply chain team currently use BluJay’s Commerce solution, along with 120 suppliers. Internationally there are hundreds more users within the franchise network.

• Mothercare has benefited from greater all-round visibility of supply chain information through its deployment of BluJay’s Commerce and in particular its integration with its own core systems, supporting enhancements to its supply chain reporting and planning processes.
• Because of this integration, Mothercare also benefits from a lack of any requirement to re-key data or duplicate processes, saving human and cost resources.
• The solution includes its own connectivity method within the MessageBroker module, meaning that Mothercare incurs no VAN connectivity costs.
• Mothercare sees the key benefit from the implementation as being the ease of which third parties such as suppliers and franchisees can trade with it.
• BluJay’s Commerce solution boasts particularly user-friendly data input screens, which are simple enough for all to use and have proved simple to train users on and to support.

• Mothercare issues on average 5,000 purchase orders electronically per week.
• Mothercare receives on average 1,900 invoices electronically per day from suppliers.