Retail Enablers: Woolworths Goes High-Efficiency With HighJump

B2B is dead. Or at least, it’s changed irrevocably since evolving markets have brought businesses and end consumers into closer orbit.

“B2B will never be the same because of the ‘C’ component,” said David Houser, senior vice president for international sales at the global supply chain management company HighJump.

Luckily for HighJump, as businesses seek ways to serve an ever-growing and ever more fickle customer base, “We’re the best-looking and smartest student in the class,” Houser said.

Though he was being facetious, there are three reasons he can get away with saying that.

First, HighJump employs highly experienced subject matter experts who have been in the supply and execution business for a long time. Second, it follows a “few-to-many” model by partnering with local experts in 79 countries who can work with HighJump’s 14,500 customers in their own languages.

Third, HighJump believes in configuration over customization. The solutions architected by HighJump are flexible and adaptable, designed to grow with the company, whether that means adding features or migrating from on-premise software to the cloud. This gives businesses an opportunity to continue growing and make changes quickly.

“The adaptability and flexibility of our solution — the fast ROI on that, the ability to deploy how you see fit on an agnostic device that you see fit or in a cloud versus on a premise, or ‘prem’ — those are differentiators and why we continue to take share away from our competitors,” said Houser.

HighJump isn’t the first to recognize that the old methods aren’t working anymore, but they are the first to address that with a fully HTML-5 stack. This makes their system for managing supply chains, from warehouse to advance shipments to transportation and distribution, device agnostic and scalable from a web host to the cloud without having to modify the code.

Users can also add relevant smartphone applets, which are features that are helpful only to specific users; including all of them for all users would make the code bloated. Instead, users who need them can pop them into the basic HighJump solution à la carte.

For instance, there’s an applet that can be programmed in to ensure food is kept at the right temperature during transport in a refrigerated truck.

The most recent addition to the HighJump global family is Woolworths Proprietary Limited, the operating entity of Woolworths Holdings Limited, a leading Southern Hemisphere retail group headquartered in South Africa.

Woolworths’ stores are brick-and-mortar retailers selling food, clothes, homeware, gifts and more. Its locations double as online fulfillment centers — a role they’re being asked to fill more and more often.

The company opted for HighJump’s Retail Advantage solution, which is optimized for businesses with end users in scattered brick-and-mortar stores and addresses what is probably the worst thing about customers, regardless of whether they’re in a store or online.

“As a consumer, I tend to be fickle,” said Houser. “I want what I want, and I want it now; and then lastly, as consumers, we don’t want to pay for that extra service.”

Woolworths acquired HighJump Retail Advantage to enact a very specific “picking solution” to improve accuracy and efficiency across its food business stores.

The picking solution has to do with the number of times items are handled, the paperwork along the way and the ability to ensure that the products on the shelves match what customers are looking for, or being able to make a quality substitution when something is sold out.

“HighJump Retail Advantage will help us standardize processes, increase productivity and improve pick accuracy,” said Zoey Rylands, Woolworths head of Selling Operations. “The increased efficiency will enable us to scale more rapidly across our stores as our eCommerce operations keep growing.”

HighJump is enabling Woolworths to eliminate inefficient and archaic paper records to make better use of its time, space and human capital. Belied by those paper records, Woolworths is actually a very forward-thinking company that has long embraced dynamic store policies to rise above competitors.

To complement the new software and better serve customers ordering online or by phone, Woolworths also invested in custom trolleys, cool-crates and wearable, rugged device scanners. Products can now be quickly scanned and stored in the crates until it’s time for them to be delivered or for the customer to pick them up.

This eliminates excess handling that can damage produce. It also drives employee efficiency, giving workers flexibility to focus on customers in the store during busy times and on virtual customers during downtimes.

The system is set to roll out in 30 stores currently served by Woolworths online. HighJump’s solution will iron out any inconsistencies in the brand experience across channels, paving the way for customers to shop with confidence, no matter how they prefer to do business.

HighJump serves clients in the “fresh space” (what Houser sees as the most important space out there right now); third party logistics; retail, apparel, and eCommerce and manufacturers and distributors.

It was founded by Michael Cornell — who is still CEO — in 1983. Since then, it’s grown from a mid-tier data collection solution focused on traceability to a tier-one provider of end-to-end supply and execution solutions. It’s worth over $200 million and has 900 employees worldwide.