Chapter 11 - Closing Case - IT Helps Laura Canada to Come Back

Question 1

Describe Laura Canada’s history. (3 points)

Answer 1

1. Founded by Laura Holstein in 1930.
   2.The company grew into a Canada wide chain in the 1990’s.
2. Family owned woman’s fashion company carrying Laura and Melanie Lynn.

Question 1

What has happened to Laura Canada throughout the years? (3 points)

Answer 1

1. Laura experienced large losses in 2012 and 2013.
2. Company had 20 million worth of liabilities, and thus in 2015 field for protection from creditors.
3. In 2015 announced a reorganizing of the company, closing underperforming stores but maintaining the business.

Question 2

How did Laura recover? Which technology advancement did they implement?

Answer 2

Redesigning the stores and investing in technology to improve the customer experience.Salesforce

Question 3

What did the Salesforce enable Laura to do with:
- Effort of customer experience in the online prescence with the two brands
- Messages
- Management / Consolidation of the Data

Answer 3

1. To diminish duplication of effort and provide customers with a more consistent experience, the company moved to a single platform for its two brands. It elevated the customers perception of the brand through improved navigation, product details, and gorgeous photography.
2. Send automated messages to welcome new comers, alerts customers about price drops, and remind them about abandoned shopping carts.
3. All customer interactions with the company service agents are logged into one system. This reduced manual data entry and provided a single view of the customer, improving the customer service efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

Question 4

What is SalesForce Einstein? How did this help Laura? What has the Laura App done?

Answer 4

An artificial intelligence based system that uses customers data to find patterns, make predictions about customer future behaviours, and other useful functions. It helped to make personalized recommendations, creating a personalized homepage to their needs and desires.
Help inshore advisors to make personalized recommendations.

Question 5

What is Yottaa? How did Laura implement Yottaa?

Answer 5

Yottaa is a web optimization service to improve the website. Since Laura uses many high resolution images as we’ll as integration with third party e-commerce technology, it would improve the speed of the website to the online visitors, allowing for enhanced customer experiences.

Question 6

What are increased conversions?

Answer 6

A term that refers to visitors completing a purchase on the website.

Question 7

What is low depth inventory?

Answer 7

A store or distribution centres does not carry many different variations of each product line.

Question 8

What is the purpose of an Omnichannel?

Answer 8

Boost customer experience both online and offline

Question 9

How did Kibocommerce assist Laura in improving its low depth inventory and omnichannel?

Answer 9

Used the Kibocommerce. It allowed Laura to configure its shipping and fulfillment options so that it better supports customers both online and in store by getting them the right items quickly, starting a ship from store operation. Store associates were trained on using the Kobo system to ship goods in a timely fashion,

Question 10

What were the results of Laura’s initiatives?
What is the percentage increase in online sales?
What percentage did revenue increase?
How much has the customer service casews increased?
How much faster is sending messages online?

Answer 10

1. Managed improve its situation after filing for creditors protection, but seen significant improvements in the business.
2. After investing in the technology, 400% increase in online sales.
3. By improving the supply chain through unlocking store inventory and shipping to stores across the country, revenue increased by 25%/
4. By improving its CRM, they tripled the number of customer service cases handled daily.
5. Sending messages via the new CRM system, prompts 30% of the company’s online sales.