WH Smith North America Soars with Oracle Cloud

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May 08, 2023, 08:00 ET

Integrated AI in Oracle Retail solutions enables leading airport and casino retailers to drive more impactful inventory planning and placement

Implements Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning Cloud Service in just 16 weeks

LAS VEGAS and AUSTIN, Texas, May 8, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- WH Smith North America (WHSNA), incorporating Marshall Retail Group - America's leading specialty retailer in the airport marketplace, is leveraging Oracle's retail cloud platform to better manage planning and inventory across its 300+ specialty airport and casino stores across the US and Canada. WHSNA's stores include company-owned and household brands such as Harley-Davidson, In Motion, LEGO and TUMI. With Oracle's AI-backed cloud solutions, the WHSNA planning team can deliver a more accurate inventory plan with optimal assortment, styles and size recommendations, providing the right merchandise in the right brands and locations to create and meet customer expectations.

"We have a great track record of fast and successful implementations with Oracle Retail," said Josh Bellendir, chief information officer of WHSNA. "We engaged Columbus Consulting to evaluate planning solutions to replace our aging technology, and we chose Oracle and RetSci for their combined retail expertise and speed to market. By choosing a modern, AI-supported platform, we can expand our planning capabilities and streamline business operations while increasing customer satisfaction."

The brand implemented Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning Cloud Service in just 16 weeks, enabling merchandise and location planners to streamline work and identify opportunities for more profitable inventory investments while ensuring day-to-day decisions align with business objectives. It also leverages Oracle Retail Artificial Intelligence Foundation Cloud Service, part of Oracle Retail Analytics and Planning Cloud Services. The two Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications provide extensible analytics and AI to drive optimal planning decisions. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) enables the performance and scalability of the Oracle retail solutions.

"This collaboration was great between WH Smith North America, Columbus Consulting, Oracle, and RetSci. The collective team managed the scope of the implementation to deliver mission-critical capabilities quickly," said Bill Zacher, Chief Operating Officer of RetSci.

"WH Smith North America is one of the first customers to deploy our Oracle retail cloud platform with AI Foundation," said Mike Webster, senior vice president, and general manager, Oracle Retail. "With these applications, WH Smith North America can scale data models across its operations and benefit from powerful predictive and prescriptive analytics to better forecast demand, improve inventory accuracy, and reduce markdowns and over-stocks to help increase customer satisfaction and profits."

In 2020, WHSNA also upgraded its in-store technology to Oracle Retail. In 100 days, WHSNA moved its stores to the modern Oracle Retail Store Point-of-Service (POS) with implementation partner BTM Global.

About WH Smith North America
WH Smith is a leading global travel retailer with over 1,700 stores across 30 countries worldwide. WH Smith North America, incorporating Marshall Retail Group (MRG) and InMotion, represents over half of the Company's international store estate, with c.320 specialty retail stores located in airports and resorts across North America.

MRG prides itself on creating unique experiences for customers by developing distinctive retail store concepts that feature and highlight the local culture, community, and lifestyle of the cities in which they are located. InMotion Entertainment Group is the largest airport-based electronics retailer in travel locations globally, with more than 120 locations throughout the United States. With access and insight into the latest technologies for business and leisure travelers, InMotion offers lifestyle products and electronics that include a wide breadth of headphones, mobile power, Bluetooth speakers and travel accessories. Follow Marshall Retail Group and InMotion on LinkedIn.

About RetSci
RetSci was founded as Cognira in 2015 by experienced data scientists and retail technology experts. Since its inception, RetSci has focused on two areas: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning-based micro solutions and analytical solution implementations. The experience of our team has worked with many of today's Fortune 50 retailers.

About Oracle
Oracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at oracle.com.

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SOURCE Oracle