Looking back on a landmark year for retail innovation at Openbravo

The pace of innovation was rapid in 2016 and  Openbravo continues to work hard to make its software products and services ready for the  opportunities and challenges facing the retail industry in 2017. Here is a review of our five most important achievements from last year that demonstrate how Openbravo Commerce Suite can help retailers hit the ground running this year.

We Can Cloud!

Last year, Openbravo officially launched its Cloud Commerce offering, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) option that enables specialty retailers to deploy Openbravo on virtual servers in Amazon Web Services.

By combining the Openbravo Commerce Cloud with the services provided locally by an authorized Openbravo Partner, retailers can enjoy a fully managed state-of-the-art retail solution in the cloud.

One of the big advantages of the cloud is that retailers have the power to choose which applications they need and when, or whether, to upgrade. Services can often be recombined to create new capabilities and easily updated and deployed across all systems.

So whether it’s  new mobile functionality, analytic reporting, new cross-channel  scenarios, or enhanced store processes, the Openbravo Commerce Cloud makes it easy to rapidly deploy new functionality in weeks, not years, and it comes with embedded monitoring and management capabilities

Advanced Warehousing  

We believe advanced warehousing is going to be an essential requisite for every retailer in 2017.

This year we have worked with our clients to add functionalities to Openbravo platform to support omnichannel logistics, fulfillment, and warehousing – all in a user-friendly, centralized, mobile-ready application.

Switching from a transaction-based to a task-based model brings two big benefits: first, space optimization, making it possible to warehouse inventory according to its popularity, sell-by date, or storage needs; and second, staff optimization, which takes into account travel sequence, dynamic priorities, and optimized users.

The new advanced warehousing functionality in Openbravo automates many  labor-intensive warehousing tasks. Deviations in inspection, cross-docking, and other settings trigger actions automatically, saving time and money.

Dynamic assignment and prioritization of tasks allows tasks to be  initiated from the front end (assign to oneself) or back-end (assign to specific users, depending on their expertise and availability). This translates to better iventory management, less stock-outs, working capital optimization, increased sales, and ultimately, more profit

Advanced Planning 

We predict that more and more businesses will focus on demand forecasting in 2017. This year, Openbravo joined forces with frePPLe, a leading supplier of open source Advanced Planning and Scheduling software, to bring this powerful capability to Openbravo users.

It is clear that the more accurately retailers can predict sales, the better they can manage pricing strategies, stock orders, warehousing, and fulfillment needs, as well as the staff to support them.

Demand forecasting solutions help retailers estimate the stock they will need based on sales data, buying patterns, and other trends across store locations, regions, and time cycles.  That historical data is then fed into algorithms to produce recommendations for smarter inventory planning and pricing strategies.

Advanced Planning software enables retailers to produce more reliable sales forecasts and optimizing the allocation of inventory to significantly reduce costs associated with forecast errors.

For more information on the new APS solution, check out our our webinar Demand Forecasting and Inventory Planning in Omnichannel Retail: Are You Ready for the Challenge?

Gartner “Cool Vendor”

As one of the world’s largest technology research companies, Gartner’s studies and predictions are closely followed by IT and business managers across all types of industry and referenced for the definition or validation of their strategies.

And this year, Openbravo has been recognized as an industry innovator and selected as a “Cool Vendor” for both India and Spain.

10^th Anniversary: We´ve come a long way!

Finally, 2016 has been a landmark year for Openbravo – and not just on the innovation front. We recently celebrated our 10th Anniversary and the whole team went to the picturesque village of Vielha in the Spanish Pyrenees, the perfect setting for team-building… and for a celebration dinner party, of course!

And we got to see just how much Openbravo grown in 10 years to become  a leader in open-source retail and ERP software with a presence in over 60 countries. In the last four years, the transformation has been particularly impressive as Openbravo´s team has successfully refocused its products and services into a complete offering designed with the specialty retail sector industry in mind. Armed with its best product yet, Openbravo is ready to take 2017 by storm!