Sainsbury's Supermarkets

Sainsbury's, a leading United Kingdom grocery chain founded in 1869, opened its first store in Drury Lane, London, with the promise of "highest quality at keenest prices." In 1998, with around 400 stores in the U.K., Ireland, and the United States, and total sales of £11.6 billion, Sainsbury's is still bringing the best products and high service quality to an increasing number of consumers. In a market that is fiercely competitive, product promotions, customer loyalty, quality of produce, and availability all drive market share and position.
Special promotions account for a whopping £2 billion—or about 10 percent—of all Sainsbury's sales. Such promotions range from a "buy one, get one free," offer, to a discounted price, to a product tie-in offer, for example, the customer gets a free bag of potato chips with every six-pack of cola. Sainsbury's runs about 2,000 promotions at any one time, involving billions of pounds worth of products, thousands of players, and an incredible array of logistical coordination. Despite this, the company had to manage the promotional planning process using a series of paper-driven systems that meant poor coordination, planning, and evaluation of promotions. "Promotions account for a large percentage of our sales, but we were running them without sufficient information," explains John Rowe, Sainsbury's director of logistics.
With the help of Microsoft Certified Solutions Provider EQOS Systems, Ltd., Sainsbury's began streamlining this critical process. The chain built a Web-based supply chain planning and collaboration system that allows suppliers and buyers to work through every detail of a product promotion in advance and to track its success in real time. The solution was created in a matter of weeks using Microsoft e-commerce technologies, such as Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition, Windows NT Server 4.0, and SQL Server 6.5. As a result of this new application, Sainsbury's is reducing the time spent in planning promotions and is eliminating the chance of running out of inventory. Sainsbury's and its suppliers can deploy stock where needed, and increase promotion-related revenues.