Chapter - 1

A Word about the company

1.1 Company Profile

Vinculum means "Long Term Relationships. It is also a mathematical notation for algebraic parenthesis which denotes the technical excellence and the domain strength of our team. Vinculum has a suite of new generation software products for the Retail industry which are offered on SaaS (Software as a Service) bringing down the Total Cost of Ownership significantly. Vinculum services are coupled with strong domain strength in Retail and Logistics focus on bringing predictability to outcomes in terms of business process improvements and timely project deliveries. Backed by Accel Partners, Vinculum creates strategic long term relationships with its customers, making a difference to them through their offices in over 10 countries across US, Europe and Asia.

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Services

At Vinculum Solutions, we are sharply focused on Retail, CPG and Logistics verticals. We offer end to end solutions to Retailers, CPG and Logistics, 3PL companies. We offer the following services:

Business Consulting Services- IT Strategy , Process Consulting Package Implementation Services Application Development and Testing Support

1.2.1 Business Consulting Services Process Consulting Services IT Architecture Consulting Process Consulting across the Supply Chain Operating a chaos-tolerant supply chain in a fast changing world is a challenge without business-specific SCM software. Our experienced consulting team can help you to manage the complexity, meet the challenges and increase profits. Vinculum has established a SCM consulting practice around industry standard products such as Infor SCM (Supply Chain Management) and Oracle G Log. These industry leading products address the challenges faced in modern supply chains and our consultants will customize these products to address the unique challenges faced by manufacturers, retailers and transportation and logistics service providers. The solution offerings include: Strategic Network Design Demand Planning Distribution Planning Manufacturing Planning Production Scheduling Transportation and Logistics Planning Warehouse Management System

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IT Architecture Consulting IT when aligned to business strategy can be very effective in achieving business objectives and improve its overall process. Our experienced consultants work with our clients senior management to understand their short, medium and long term objectives to develop an architecture that will address our clients present and future needs. Challenges Addressed: Reducing time-to-market Minimizing IT expenditures Maximizing ROI from IT investments Adapting to the rapidly changing technology landscape Ensuring IT alignment to business strategy Integrating disparate legacy applications 1.2.2 Package Implementations Vinculum excels in helping to solve complex business issues and improve productivity through selection and implementation of packaged business technology solutions. Our ERP solutions deliver the results businesses want within a budget they can afford. Our two-step approach will help you to realize the potential business value in short span of time. Step-1: Right ERP software identification: Compare the benefits between implementing a packaged solution to building and maintaining one in-house, if any. Step-2: Implementation of identified software: Tailoring the package to your requirements, integrating it with your other systems and ensuring high user adoption within your organization.

Our experienced team of highly knowledgeable professionals will help you in identifying and implementing effective software package to meet your business objectives. Warehousing Systems Transportation Systems Merchandising Systems Visual Merchandising Price Optimization

1.2.3 Application Development and Testing Services We believe a combination of onsite, near shore and offshore development models provides a framework to drive continuous software improvement to our customers. At Vinculum, our application development methodology caters to the best of breed processes resulting in a successful on-time, within budget and above expected quality of delivery for our customers. We follow stringent quality procedures, use of industry benchmarked practices and a top notch team with extensive domain and technical acumen to help our clients get the best return on their IT spend. We work with you to i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. Define Business Requirements Outline the solution Define the solution architecture Develop prototypes for demos to users Custom build the solution Validate the developed solution against your requirements Roll out of the solution across your organization Onsite/Offsite/Offshore based continuous support for the solution

We typically work on either Iterative Waterfall Development Model or Agile Development Model for Onsite/Offsite/Offshore based development engagements.

User Acceptance Testing Rapidly changing business needs have resulted in a shortage of business user time for rigorous testing of software. At Vinculum, User Acceptance Testing service help software vendors and business software users assure themselves that their software is functionally "Fit to Use". We conduct complete User Acceptance Testing in the following areas: i. ii. iii. iv. v. Rollout of new products Migration from one software to another Enhancement releases Creation of automated regression test packs Business as Usua or 'Bug Fix Testing'

Our domain experts works with you right from the Requirement Definition stage. Starting with Business Requirement documents, we use the Black Box testing approach to produce full-coverage, end-to-end business scenarios to uncover critical defects in your existing system. Wherever required, we create test beds using in-house tools to simulate large volumes of data. We run the testing process parallel with your software development process. This value added service helps you to eliminate bugs in the early stages of the software development cycle.

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Projects

1.3.1 Vin eRetail - Multi Channel Simplified

A complete suite of modules including Merchandising, Multi-Channel Order fulfilment, Store Inventory Management, Warehousing and Reverse Logistics, BI and CRM/Loyalty solutions. Each of the modules can be implemented separately or integrated with other products or as a complete suite. With focus on process based configurability and rich functionality, Vin eRetail can be implemented in less than 6 weeks to meet the growing needs of a variety of formats including fashion, speciality, convenience, grocery, supermarket, hypermarket, departmental retailers.

Benefits i. ii. iii. iv. v. Improved order fulfillment rates Defined merchandising hierarchy Efficient procurement methodology Enhanced customer service Increased order accuracy

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Tracks Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) Improves productivity and reduces cost Increased market response rate

1.3.2 Vin MDM - Retail Master Data Management ensuring consistent data across the Enterprise A unique product with focus on providing consistent business data across the enterprise. We have crystallized our extensive global experiences and retail domain strength into a set of 250+ business rules which are the common patterns for data inconsistency for retailers. With pre defined connectors to all leading software products used by retailers including Oracle Retail, SAP IS Retail, JDA MMS and financial packages like Oracle EBIS and leading POS vendors, Vin MDM easily integrates and pulls data from the myriad enterprise products or legacy applications used by retailers. The data patterns synthesize and identify the common set of data issues which then become easy for our customers to cleanse. With a focus on business process improvements, Vin MDM addresses issues at the source and ensures that data quality issues do not recur. A typical Enterprise MDM project takes long time and is a high cost initiative. Vin MDM is a new generation product which is implemented in less than 2 months at a fraction of the conventional cost thereby achieving ROI (Return on Investment) rapidly for our customers. We also offer a post implementation audit to maintain Enterprise data quality on a SaaS (Software as a Service) mode on a monthly subscription. Features and Benefits of Vin MDM: i. ii. iii. iv. v. Centralized structure for easier Data Retrieval, Governance, SOA Compliance process Speeds execution of corporate strategic business plans Resolves complexity of Multi-country, Multi-format operations Improved decision-making thanks to broader analysis, timelier intelligence, better accuracy of data and greater system stability MDM simplifies the integration process of mergers and acquisitions by enabling a transparent process for BPM Master Data consolidation and reconciliation Reduced cost and time-to-market by avoiding inefficient and expensive part duplication and part number proliferation Flexible, easy-to-use, web-based access mechanism reduces requirement for training and increases the likelihood that users will locate and reuse existing parts instead of creating new, redundant ones.

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Users can quickly and effectively find and reuse preferred parts by comparing important functional, physical, supply chain and environmental compliance characteristics Improves productivity and reduces cost Increased market response rate.

1.3.3 Vin Store Vin Store Suite is a dynamic, modular and fully integrated system, flexibly designed to streamline industry-specific operational and business requirements in a single integrated data model. It is targeted at high growth retailers. The key modules are available for Customer Interaction, Store Systems and Central Office Systems. Vinculums Store operations management software suite comprises of the following key products: i. ii. iii. Vin POS Vin BOS The above products combined together provides multi-channel visibility, empowering your operational teams to manage effectively, transactions at the point of sale, back office operations, decrease labor costs and drive customer loyalty programs, so that you can enhance the customer experience and increase productivity at the stores. The suite provides central tracking & control of multiple inventory types and control, minimizing shrinkage and increase operational margins. One of the main advantages of the using the entire suite is inherent master data management function which is because all the systems use the same product information across the enterprise.

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Chapter 2

Introduction of the project

2.1 Justification and Need for the system