New Era for Celerant
Celerant Technology Corp. of Staten Island, N.Y., is another company offering POS systems for the apparel industry. When Buffalo, N.Y.–based New Era Cap Co. Inc., the largest headwear manufacturer in the United States, decided to launch an international chain of retail stores in major-market locations, it turned to Celerant to create an optimum, adaptable POS system—one that would assist the manufacturer with its aggressive foray into retail. The first New Era flagship store opened in the spring of 2006 in Buffalo, and the second location, in Manhattan, opened two weeks later. Since then, the company has launched five more locations in Atlanta, Toronto, Berlin, London and Birmingham, England.
With the assistance of Celerant, New Era retail planners were able to fine-tune their goals and POS requirements. “We were very clear with our direction and implementation needs,” says Cal Lawson, New Era’s retail operations manager for North America. “Over time, we recognized the necessity for developing controls and system tools ideal for our business.”
Michele Majka, the marketing and communications manager for Celerant, worked closely with New Era as the company developed its systems and opened its stores. “We set everything up for them, with their future growth in mind,” Majka says. “They were planning a very aggressive launch, and we needed to make sure that they were building on a solid foundation because we were dealing with international systems and tying together several stores and a warehouse. They needed a complete retail management system.”
“Several sessions were conducted with Celerant to address our needs,” Lawson explains. “We worked with IT, development and trainers throughout this process. And now we have well-functioning systems with very thorough reports.”
Majka says the scalable Celerant POS system can grow as New Era grows. In addition, she says, Celerant POS offers complete warehouse functionality, including picking and packing, shipping, and reorder information. And everything is in real time, which affords up-to-the-minute, accurate information. “You know where every item is at any time,” she says.
Lawson says he would advise companies considering POS systems to consider “cost vs. function.”
“POS is designed for good inventory controls, so be sure to understand how inventory is affected by all transactions, i.e., entering, receiving, sales, payables, etc.,” he notes.
