Quezon City, Philippines | 26 December 2011

Manthan Systems, a leader and innovator in Retail and Supply Chain Solutions, today announced that the Robinsons Retail Group has implemented Manthan’s award-winning solution ARC Supplier Portal & Analytics (ARC SPA) software. With ARC SPA, Robinsons and their supplier community will now be able to standardize and automate end-to-end order to purchasing cycle, get visibility across sales, inventory, and payment data through embedded analytics, and finally build sustainable and profitable relationships.

“Real collaboration means finding solutions which enable suppliers to communicate their core messages to retailers, instead of just feeding them with data and requirements. Manthan’s ARC SPA is one solution designed for such pervasive levels of collaboration in the retail industry” says Cesar Solomon, Jr., Chief Information Officer of the Robinsons Retail Group. “Our investment in ARC SPA is part of the group’s well-conceived and far-sighted strategy towards improving vendor relations and achieving overall business efficiency through high-level supplier collaboration.”

Robinsons is a household name in the Philippines, with over 600 multi-format retail outlets across the country led by Robinsons Department Store, Robinsons Supermarket, Robinsons Appliances plus alliances for global brands such as Topshop, Topman, Warehouse, Trucco Dorothy Perkins, Toys “R” Us, Ministop, Handyman Do It Best, True Value and Howard’s Storage World.

“ARC SPA’s simple interface and easy-to-use functionality has driven high user-adoption among more than half of our suppliers in a dramatically short time frame, complete with guidance and access tools to use and manage the portal-solution for mutual benefit,” says Jenifer Aguilar-Encomienda, Information Systems Manager. “Because registration into the system is quick and easy, we expect to enroll more suppliers by end of 2012. Also, with the successful implementation in Supermarket, we will be rolling out the system to our other business units next year.”

“With the ARC SPA, at the click of a button, real-time information on Purchase Orders, Service Levels, Sales, Inventory and Payment details is readily available. This has greatly improved our efficiency and hastened business decision-making,” says Karl Cotaoco, Area Customer Manager of Unilever Philippines Inc., one of the largest vendors of Robinsons.

“We can generate sales and inventory on a per SKU by store level, allowing us to see the trend of our business. This helps us to identify which brand to focus on, making us more proactive on business planning,” asserts Jenny Tan, Key Accounts Manager from Procter and Gamble Philippines, another major supplier of Robinsons.

Using a web interface, ARC SPA provides a rich repository of information and collaboration opportunities, like updates on stocks, sales, and payment, thus minimizing paper trails at both retailer and supplier ends. The solution makes it one of the easiest for adoption by retailer-supplier networks, which was one of the key reasons for winning the 'Best Product' at the US-based 2011 Stevie®Awards.

“The acceptance and utilization of a supplier portal solution increases significantly when retailers and suppliers work together cohesively. ARC SPA is designed for two-way communication instead of simply pushing out information, requirements and data to suppliers and this has been a key differentiator driving ARC SPA’s high success rate” says Cherokee Chamorro, Philippines Country Manager, Manthan Systems.

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