Order Management System Helps GNC Meet Omnichannel Goals

GNC, a global retailer of health and nutrition-related products, recently implemented enVista’s order management system (OMS) and agile, cloud-native Unified Commerce Cloud Platform to rapidly enable its omnichannel strategy. With these systems now in place, GNC will be able to accomplish the following: 

• obtain enterprise inventory visibility;
• optimize order orchestration and fulfillment across its vast network of distribution centers, suppliers and 4,000-plus North American retail store locations; and
• increase customer-centric commerce initiatives.

In an exclusive interview with Total Retail, Tricia Tolivar, executive vice president and chief financial officer at GNC, discussed how a new OMS and commerce cloud platform will allow the retailer to significantly and rapidly advance its omnichannel fulfillment capabilities.

Tricia Tolivar, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, GNC

Total Retail: Why was GNC interested in investing in an OMS?
Tricia Tolivar: An OMS is the foundation for our digital transformation. The OMS allows GNC to manage both direct and indirect channels, and provides visibility to all inventory in GNC’s network. Exposing inventory in all channels and sites (stores, DCs, and vendors) allows GNC to source and allocate inventory from the closest proximity, improving margin by selling nonproductive inventory. Furthermore, the ability to fulfill from any site improves the customer experience.

TR: What about enVista's solution was appealing to GNC?
TT: The enVista OMS platform enables GNC to capture any demand source and allocate inventory from any inventory source optimally. The OMS optimizes cost to service while providing order state and status to the customer and GNC customer service. The enVista platform is built on a integrated framework that allows GNC to connect to a number of internal systems/applications faster. The integration framework is native to the platform, allowing GNC to reduce the total cost of ownership and time to value. In addition, the platform will simplify the current IT applications within GNC, replacing many point solutions with one unified commerce platform to manage item, order, payment, and omnichannel fulfillment for both direct and indirect channels.

TR: Why is omnichannel fulfillment a potential differentiator for GNC in a competitive retail market?
TT: Omnichannel fulfillment, which comprises of buy online, ship from store (BOSFS) and buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), allows GNC to delight the customer from any place at anytime. GNC can compress delivery time by leveraging a 4,000-plus store delivery network. Next-day and same-day fulfillment is possible by leveraging the OMS to orchestrate and fulfill the customer order.

TR: What do you envision as being the primary business benefits from having a robust OMS and unified commerce platform?
TT: As a result of having a robust OMS and unified commerce platform, GNC will realize the following benefits:

• Competing on time by leveraging inventory that's closest to the customer.
• Proactive order state and status of the order to the customer, which improves the customer experience.
• Potential of reducing total inventory in the network while improving gross margin return on investment.
• Having one source of trust for all orders regardless of channel, hence moving to a unified “channeless” environment.
• The OMS can drive incremental revenue by exposing enterprisewide inventory and reduce operating cost by fulfilling from the least cost network node (site).

TR: Considering your customers’ shopping behavior, what are the ways that GNC plans to optimize their experiences through technology investments such as an OMS?
TT: We plan to offer BOPIS and BOSFS services as well as improve the overall customer experience through shorter delivery times and clearer information regarding order status.