Case study: Foschini jewellery division

Jam Warehouse delivers for Foschini jewellery business

The Foschini Group has 14 trading divisions that encompass a huge lifestyle product range, from sporting equipment to fashion, jewellery, cosmetics, accessories and homeware. With over 1200 stores, it is one of the foremost speciality retailers in South Africa.

Jam Warehouse designed, built and implemented a custom buying management and planning system for the Foschini Group’s jewellery business. Called the Jewellery Management System (JMS), it handles complex and detailed assortment planning, purchase planning, product costing, quoting and allocation planning for around 300 jewellery stores. It is a mission-critical system that connects sales strategy and range planning with the costing, buying, and distribution processes as they iterate over a trading season.

JMS is based on Microsoft .NET and MS SQL, but it integrates tightly with Foschini's Oracle-based merchandise systems. It also integrates with the Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure and a proprietary image library system. It is developed primarily in .NET technologies, making extensive use of .NET remoting to provide the required reliability and performance for Oracle data access. The main JMS data store is a clustered MS SQL implementation, carefully optimised with chunky data access. The user interface includes comprehensive online help and is highly configurable, making extensive use of user wizards and spreadsheet-like controls with stored user views.

The JMS system, including the associated data migration, training and change management, was implemented as part of a full information technology refresh for the Foschini jewellery business. The program design required a big-bang switch-on, and JMS provided exceptional performance, reliability and maintainability from the outset. In 2007, Jam Warehouse added new system enhancements, extending the merchandise process automation and developing an extra module for managing the Foschini watch range.

JMS has been a key contributor to better buying for the Foschini jewellery business, resulting in more focused product ranges, improved product availability and fewer markdowns. JMS significantly increased turnover and profit, even in the tough retail climate of 2008-2009.


Projects Products Clients Careers Case Studies	Case study: Foschini jewellery division Jam Warehouse delivers for Foschini jewellery business The Foschini Group has 14 trading divisions that encompass a huge lifestyle product range, from sporting equipment to fashion, jewellery, cosmetics, accessories and homeware. With over 1200 stores, it is one of the foremost speciality retailers in South Africa. Jam Warehouse designed, built and implemented a custom buying management and planning system for the Foschini Group’s jewellery business. Called the Jewellery Management System (JMS), it handles complex and detailed assortment planning, purchase planning, product costing, quoting and allocation planning for around 300 jewellery stores. It is a mission-critical system that connects sales strategy and range planning with the costing, buying, and distribution processes as they iterate over a trading season. JMS is based on Microsoft .NET and MS SQL, but it integrates tightly with Foschini's Oracle-based merchandise systems. It also integrates with the Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure and a proprietary image library system. It is developed primarily in .NET technologies, making extensive use of .NET remoting to provide the required reliability and performance for Oracle data access. The main JMS data store is a clustered MS SQL implementation, carefully optimised with chunky data access. The user interface includes comprehensive online help and is highly configurable, making extensive use of user wizards and spreadsheet-like controls with stored user views. The JMS system, including the associated data migration, training and change management, was implemented as part of a full information technology refresh for the Foschini jewellery business. The program design required a big-bang switch-on, and JMS provided exceptional performance, reliability and maintainability from the outset. In 2007, Jam Warehouse added new system enhancements, extending the merchandise process automation and developing an extra module for managing the Foschini watch range. JMS has been a key contributor to better buying for the Foschini jewellery business, resulting in more focused product ranges, improved product availability and fewer markdowns. JMS significantly increased turnover and profit, even in the tough retail climate of 2008-2009.


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