The technology behind international trading

Transparency is fundamental to international trading, says software provider Concrete Group’s chief exective Tristan Rogers. His point is that the sharing of information between overseas teams with their domestic ones is key to making the international business successful.

International trading is top on retailers’ agenda with M&S stepping up its international expansion with its first store in Egypt and third in China and Sir Philip Green to take Topshop to Brazil.

Tristan Rogers says the key to international trading lies in the technology that underpins the business. The platform provided by Concrete Group allows retailers to execute its marketing, distribution, project management, merchandising and remote learning functions using the system.

The relationship with franchises is part of international success, according to Rogers. He says: “Retailers haven’t thought how franchises should trade. You have to give them the tools to do it. Franchises should be allocated more cost, but more visibility is needed on their trading. They need the same complex domestic relationship that they have with stores at home.”

M&S, one of Concrete’s clients, has 356 international stores in 42 territories and over half of those are franchises. M&S International sales were up 4.5% in the 13 weeks to 1 January this year.

Rogers explains of M&S’s international stategy: “We’re focusing on getting to the granular data of products sold with M&S right now. They haven’t got that level of data from franchises.”

It is not only data on international trading through franchises that he says is necessary, but also getting the feel of franchise stores right.

“Retailers can drag and drop components of stores to make store plans using the Concrete system, rather than annotating CAD drawings,” he says. This means that head office can have this instant manipulation of what they want in each store and feed that over to international teams.

In 2011, Rogers adds that visual range planning will be added to the platform that will allow pictures of garments on the system to be dragged and dropped together to make collections.